THE    SCOLYTIDIAN    MASTERPIECE 

(One  fifth  of  original  size) 


ON  THE 
MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 


BY 

ELLEN  BURNS  SHERMAN 


And  Nature,  the  old  nurse,  took 
The  child  upon  her  knee, 

Saying,  "Here  is  a  story-book 

Thy  Father  has  written  for  thee." 

"Come  wander  with  me,"  she  said, 
"Into  regions  yet  untrod; 

And  read  what  is  still  unread 
In  the  manuscripts  of  God." 

—Longfellow. 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


COPTKIQHT,  1918,  BT 

ELLEN  BURNS  SHERMAN 


• 


DEDICATED  TO  THE  MEMORY 
OF  ONE  WHOSE  RESPONSIVE- 
NESS TO  EVERY  CHARM  AND 
MOOD  OF  NATURE  I  HAVE 
NEVER  SEEN  SURPASSED. 

E.  B.  S. 


CONTENTS 


I.  WRIT  IN  WATER 7 

II.  THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL  33 

III.  THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 48 

IV.  FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 61 

V.  OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 78 

VI.  PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 99 

VII.  NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR  POLKA  DOTS.  .  117 

VIII.  A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 129 

IX.  WHEN  THE  LEAF  is  WOO'D  FROM  OUT 

THE  BUD 149 

X.  THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT  .                     ,  160 


FOR  PERMISSION  TO  REPUBLISH  SOME  OP  THESE  STUDIES,  THE 
AUTHOR  IS  INDEBTED  TO  THE  NORTH  AMERICAN  REVIEW,  THE 
NEW  ENGLAND  MAGAZINE,  OUTDOOR  WORLD,  THE  CHRISTIAN 
REGISTER,  AND  THE  NEW  YORK  SUN. 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

T  TOW  very  kin  is  man  to  nature  in  his 
^  -••  habit  of  adapting  to  myriad  forms  and 
ends  every  substance  which  takes  the  im- 
press of  his  spirit,  from  the  hardest  granite 
to  the  delicate  spinnings  of  the  silkworm. 
Does  not  nature,  the  mother  of  fair  en- 
chantments, do  the  same  thing  with  flower 
and  feather,  earth  and  water,  and  every 
other  element  with  which  she  works? 

Behold  her  fair  and  naughty  witcheries 
with  water,  with  whose  mutability  she  sug- 
gests a  feminine  counterpart  to  the  more 
seemingly  solid  and  masculine  earth,  espe- 
cially as  it  manifests  itself  in  rugged  moun- 
tain peaks.  Watch  her  exultant  transfor- 
mations with  this  most  plastic  medium, 
which  almost  seems  like  matter  on  its  way 
to  spirit — the  spirit  which  it  attains  when 

it  is  translated  by  the  sun.    She  makes  fogs, 

7 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

vapors,  mists,  clouds,  rain,  and  rainbows  with 
it;  she  distils  it  into  dewdrops,  or  mixes  it 
with  earth  for  the  creation  of  bogs  and 
swamps,  or  mixes  it  with  minerals  for  the 
healing  of  human  ills ;  she  makes  brine,  surf, 
and  whitecaps  with  it;  she  freezes  it  into 
snow,  hail,  and  ice,  and  finally  petrifies  it, 
after  her  manner  of  running  the  entire 
gamut  of  possibilities.  She  hews  the  hardest 
rocks  with  it;  she  plays  with  it,  sings  with 
it,  chants  with  it,  and  roars  with  it — blesses 
and  curses  with  it,  according  to  the  measure 
of  her  giving  or  her  withholding. 

Beginning  with  a  raindrop  and  ever  add- 
ing the  little  more  that  finally  makes  so 
much,  how  innumerable  is  the  series  of 
water-wonders  she  creates  till  she  reaches 
her  climax  in  the  ocean,  over  which  she  has 
so  effectively  waved  her  wand  that  it  can 
be  the  great  communistic  bath-tub  of  the 
human  race  and  at  the  same  time  lose  noth- 
ing of  its  perennial  sublimity.  Like  a  great 
literary  artist,  who  from  the  same  inkstand 
and  fountain  of  inspiration  conjures  a  trio- 
let, a  stately  sonnet,  a  lyric,  or  a  mighty  epic, 

8 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

so  does  nature,  writing  from  her  vast  cosmic 
inkstand  of  water,  enscroll  the  earth  with 
water-writ  songs.  Thus  the  whole  globe  is 
set  to  music — the  voice  of  many  waters — 
which,  if  one  could  hear  it  in  its  entire 
volume,  might  well  be  one  of  the  mightiest 
scores  in  the  music  of  the  spheres.  And 
how  soothing  it  is,  in  the  midst  of  the  roar 
of  a  great  city,  to  close  the  outward  ear 
and  with  the  inward  one  hear  the  glad  little 
songs  of  thousands  of  brooks,  the  deep  full 
choruses  of  great  rivers,  the  solemn  chants 
of  waterfalls  and  cataracts,  and  the  stead- 
fast music  of  the  sea! 

Working  with  earth,  the  great  artist  may 
sometimes  write  passages  which  seem  to  be 
prose,  but  never  when  she  writes  with  water. 
Even  in  her  most  utilitarian  strophes  of 
rainwater  she  uses  wild  rhythms  and  dra- 
matic intermezzos  of  thunder  and  lightning, 
sometimes  closing  her  performance  with  the 
exquisite  envoy  of  a  rainbow. 

Nor  does  she  ignore  the  artistic  possibili- 
ties of  the  single  drop.  By  a  shrewd  control 

of  atmospheric  conditions  she  distils  in  the 

9 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

dewdrop  a  more  ethereal  counterpart  of  the 
raindrop,  and  mimics  in  its  dazzling  tints 
the  splendor  of  all  the  jewels  with  which 
mankind  has  pieced  out  the  vocabulary  of 
love  and  pride.  With  another  intercelestial 
incantation  she  refines  her  medium  to  fogs 
and  mists,  abolishing  the  harsh  angles  of 
the  world  and  throwing  a  veil  of  glamour 
over  objects  which  have  lost  their  mystery 
in  the  common  light  of  day.  This  is  na- 
ture, the  mystic,  as  we  again  find  her  in 
some  of  her  subterranean  waterways  yet  to 
be  mentioned.  Before  she  has  finished  ex- 
periments with  water  in  its  refined  form  she 
makes  a  collaboration  with  the  sun  in  the 
moving  pictures  of  cloudland.  These,  by 
her  own  white  magic,  she  continually 
changes  on  the  reel  of  nights  and  days,  so 
that  never  once  in  all  the  day-paged  ages 
has  she  repeated  herself. 

That  nature  herself  feels  a  bit  of  pride 
in  this  celestial  translation  of  her  work  one 
suspects  from  her  clever  arrangement  of 
ocean,  lake,  and  river  mirrors  which  capture 

the  reflections  of  the  clouds  and  bring  them 

10 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

within  the  myopic  range  of  the  man  who  for- 
gets to  look  up  at  the  heavens. 

Working  with  her  marvelous  medium  on 
the  earth,  nature  keeps  her  old  rule  of  doing 
nothing  by  leaps.  From  the  tiniest  rill — a 
simple  little  rondeau  sung  in  the  wooded 
hills — she  goes  on  increasing  her  volume 
from  pastoral  brook  and  lyric  rivulet  till  she 
writes  a  great  epic  in  an  Amazon  or  a  Mis- 
sissippi. By  the  same  imperceptible  steps 
she  passes  from  the  ignoble  puddle,  whose 
very  name  classifies  it,  to  the  inscrutable 
pool,  full  of  dreams,  the  little  lake,  the 
larger  one,  the  great  lake,  the  inland  sea, 
and  her  magnum  opus,  the  ocean.  Each  of 
these  she  further  varies  by  her  canny  sor- 
ceries of  depth,  chemical  composition,  and 
reflection,  now  producing  an  emerald  pool, 
a  salt  lake,  a  dead  sea,  or  the  inky  ocean 
of  the  tropics. 

Still  ringing  new  changes  on  her  old 
songs,  the  gay  leader  of  these  unique  orches- 
tras lures  her  brooks  to  some  steep  rocky  cliff 
and  dares  them  to  rush  over  the  brink.  Be- 
ing her  children,  of  course  they  accept  the 

11 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

dare,  and  burst  into  a  sonorous  cascade  of 
exultation,  which  was  precisely  what  the 
dear  old  dreamer  of  dreams  intended.  This 
experiment  successfully  carried  out,  she 
"tries  it  on"  with  larger  streams  all  over  the 
world,  crowning  her  achievements  with  Ni- 
agara, the  Kaieteur,  and  the  Takakaw  Falls 
in  the  valley  of  the  Yoho.  Then,  perhaps  by 
the  autosuggestion  of  falling  water,  she 
works  out  another  idea:  if  falling  water  could 
be  so  effective,  how  would  it  look  if  rushed 
up  into  the  air?  Why  not,  indeed,  when  no 
sooner  thought  than  done  is  the  watchword 
of  our  fair  enchantress? 

So,  commanding  her  fearful  underground 
Vulcans,  she  fashions  the  geyser  as  easily 
as  a  man  gets  steam  from  a  teakettle.  Com- 
pared with  the  tender  little  folk-song  of  the 
brook,  the  geyser  is  operatic  in  its  effect,  and 
somewhat  more  like  a  tour  de  force  than 
waters  which  simply  obey  the  law  of  gravity. 
Having  successfully  run  a  stream  of  hot 
water  up  in  the  air,  one  expects  nature  to 
reverse  her  tactics  and  engineer  a  river  un- 
derground, and  the  dear  Lady  of  Caprice 

12 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

does  not  disappoint  our  expectations.  For 
with  water,  as  with  every  other  element  in 
her  control,  she  sooner  or  later  plays  the 
mystic,  forever  luring  man  with  the  game  of 
hide-and-seek  to  keep  his  wonder  alive. 
How  many  of  these  hidden  underground 
streams  there  are  that  run  "through  caverns 
measureless  to  man"  we  know  as  little  as  we 
know  the  number  of  gold  and  silver  veins 
yet  to  be  discovered. 

Related  to  the  subterranean  stream  in  its 
charm  of  mystery  are  the  thousands  of 
springs  that  bubble  out  of  the  earth,  now  as 
pure  as  "dew  distilled  at  even,"  or  again 
flavored  with  all  manner  of  minerals  for  the 
healing  of  all  manner  of  ills.  Here  also 
nature  plays  another  of  her  favorite  games, 
"guess  which,"  as  she  does  with  all  her  fruits, 
herbs,  and  other  edibles  and  non-edibles. 
Out  of  a  thousand  different  mineral  springs 
there  may  be  one  which  will  cure  you.  "Go 
and  find  it,  then,"  whispers  the  silence  of 
this  wise  Dame  Sans  Souci;  "the  game  is 
on  with  my  mineral  springs  as  it  is  with 
everything  else  in  my  treasure-packed 

13 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

universe,  but  the  rules  of  the  game  are  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  those  in  'Hunt  the  Lady's 
Slipper,'  which  you  must  play  if  you  would 
find  the  one  woman  in  a  million — I  won't 
say  which  million — with  whom  you  would 
be  happy." 

Thus  with  teasing  nonchalance  nature 
bubbles  over  in  thousands  and  thousands  of 
springs,  but  will  never  play  the  role  of  pa- 
ternalism to  rob  mankind  of  his  initiative 
and  the  joy  of  adventure.  Another  trick 
of  her  coquettish  habit  of  keeping  man 
guessing  is  to  put  a  fresh-water  spring  in 
the  midst  of  a  body  of  salt  water,  so  that  it 
is  available  only  at  low  tide.  Still  more 
Shavian  whimsies  are  a  hot-water  spring 
bubbling  up  out  of  cold  water,  as  it  is  found 
in  Saint  Michael — in  the  Azores — and  the 
Cascades  of  Hieropolis,  falls  which  were 
turned  to  stone  by  their  own  deposits  slowly 
made  through  the  ages. 

Apparently  nature  enjoys  playing  not 
only  with  the  position  and  composition  of 
her  spring  waters,  but  with  the  size  and 
fashion  of  the  cups,  now  Lilliputian,  now 

14 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

Brobdingnagian,  in  which  she  offers  them  to 
man.  Such  a  suggestion  bubbles  up  from 
some  of  the  hot  springs  in  Abyssinia,  which 
issue  from  the  top  of  what  look  like  huge 
ant-hills,  twenty  feet  high,  but  in  reality  are 
pyramids  built  by  successive  mineral  de- 
posits of  the  water  itself.  Still  stranger  are 
the  beakers  she  fashions  in  the  shape  of 
water-storing  plants  for  arid  regions  like  the 
deserts  of  Mexico.  Such  plants,  "with  pri- 
vate cisterns,"  are  the  Ibervillea  sonora,  the 
Beaucarnea  cedipus,  which  has  the  basis  of 
its  trunk  swollen  to  a  diameter  of  seven  or 
eight  feet,  the  barrel  cactus,  and  the  Pilo- 
cereus  fulviceps,  of  which  a  single  plant  may 
retain  several  hundred  gallons  of  water. 
From  these  larger  goblets  nature  tapers 
down  till  she  plays  doll's  house  with  the 
naughty  enticements  of  pitcher-plants, 
which  she  designs  in  thirty-five  species  in  the 
tropics  alone. 

Reading  of  these  parched  lands,  where 
the  sound  of  flowing  or  falling  water  is  never 
heard,  one  feels  a  fresh  compassion  for  the 

thirsty  Israelites,  who,  on  their  painful  jour- 
is 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

ney  out  of  Egypt,  either  found  no  water  at 
all,  or  found  it  too  bitter  to  drink.  The 
sympathetic  reader  finally  takes  on  their 
symptoms,  and  finds  solid  satisfaction  in  a 
later  record  which  chronicles  the  stop  at 
Elim,  where  there  were  "twelve  wells  of 
water  and  threescore  and  ten  palm  trees." 
Even  more  pleasant  is  the  exultant  descrip- 
tion with  which  Moses  cheered  the  weary 
hearts  of  the  chosen  people:  "For  the  Lord 
thy  God  bringeth  thee  into  a  good  land,  a 
land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and 
depths  that  spring  out  of  valleys  and  hills." 
Here  we  catch  something  more  than  the  crass 
recognition  of  the  practical  uses  of  water. 
Moses  was  obviously  a  pragmatist  with  mar- 
gins, for  we  feel  in  his  description  of  the 
promised  land  a  distinctly  poetic  response 
to  the  call  of  the  many-voiced  waters. 

The  same  response  to  the  spiritual 
glamour  of  water  is  felt  in  a  fervid  verse 
in  Judges:  "The  river  Kishon  swept  them 
away,  that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon" 
Something  almost  like  a  suggestion  of  awe 
is  preserved  in  this  record;  it  was  not  only 

16 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

a  river  with  all  the  usual  lure  of  an  on-rush- 
ing stream,  but  Age  had  also  lent  it  her 
poetic  mantle  of  mystery.  One  feels  the 
thought  of  the  writer  drifting  backward  on 
the  tide  of  memory,  and  conjuring  up  the 
scenery  on  its  banks  and  the  various  tradi- 
tions that  may  have  been  told  of  "Kishon, 
that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon." 

As  the  river  Kishon  flowed  not  only 
through  the  land  which  it  watered,  but  also 
with  vivid,  throbbing  associations  through 
the  memory  of  the  writer,  so  every  brook 
and  river  in  the  habitable  regions  of  the 
globe  keeps  a  double  course,  one  within  its 
own  banks  and  another,  more  perennial, 
in  the  cherished  memories  of  men.  For  to 
all  the  water-writ  melodies  of  nature  man 
has  added  the  overtones  of  his  own  associa- 
tions, glad,  sad,  and  tender,  national  or  per- 
sonal, or  both.  To  the  German,  the  Rhine 
and  the  Danube  would  still  be  very  grandly 
rushing  rivers  and  flow  with  undiminished 
majesty  through  his  memory  and  literature, 
though  their  material  waters  had  long  gone 
dry.  So  would  the  ''yellow  Tiber"  lave  its 

17 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

secondary  literary  banks  and  the  Fountain 
of  Bandusia  bubble  up  refreshingly  in  Ho- 
ratian  meters,  though  both  the  original  river 
and  the  spring  had  been  sipped  to  their  dregs 
by  the  thirsty  sun. 

So  the  Nile,  the  Ganges,  the  Jordan,  the 
Thames,  the  Seine,  the  Dee,  the  Doon,  the 
Shannon,  and  the  Mississippi,  like  great 
characters,  have  woven  themselves  into  the 
history,  song,  and  story  of  their  respective 
lands,  becoming  national  assets,  material 
and  spiritual,  whose  value  cannot  be  quoted 
in  terms  of  the  market  place,  but,  rather, 
in  those  poetic  weights  and  measures  which 
take  account  of  star-beams  and  shadows. 

More  blithe  and  affable  than  the  awesome 
mountain  peak,  the  brook,  river,  and  lake 
lend  themselves  to  friendly  association.  You 
may  fish  in  them,  swim  in  them,  bathe  in 
them,  row  over  them,  sing  over  them,  and 
make  love  over  them,  and  find  them  faithful 
comrades  who  will  match  every  mood  of 
yours  with  one  of  their  own.  If  you  are 
great,  they  will  reflect  your  greatness  with 
the  same  selflessness  with  which  they  make 

18 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

themselves  a  mirror  for  the  heavens,  still  all 
unconscious  of  the  give-and-take  which  may 
make  them  famous.  Avon  and  Grasmere 
are  not  merely  the  bodies  of  water  which 
bear  those  names,  but  are  forever  haloed  by 
their  association  with  the  greatness  which 
they  helped  to  foster.  In  like  manner, 
Walden  is  Walden  plus  its  associations  with 
Thoreau,  as  Thoreau  is  Thoreau  plus  his 
associations  with  Walden  and  several  other 
things,  material  and  immaterial.  In  a  still 
greater  degree  the  rivers  and  lakes  of  the 
Holy  Land  have  acquired  a  spiritual  dis- 
tinction which  no  body  of  water  in  secular 
lands  may  claim.  Only  mention  the  "Sea 
of  Galilee"  to  a  devout  Christian,  and  you 
have  tuned  all  his  meditations  to  the  pitch 
of  reverence.  A  good  illustration  of  this 
effect  is  given  by  Whittier  in  his  poem  on 
Palestine : 

"Blue  sea  of  the  hills,  in  my  spirit  I  hear 
Thy  waters,  Gennesaret,  chime  on  my  ear 
Where  the  Lowly  and  Just  with  the  people  sat  down 
And  the  spray  on  the  dust  of  His  sandals  was 
thrown." 

19 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

In  addition  to  the  national  and  religious 
affection  inspired  by  certain  rivers,  lakes,  or 
other  bodies  of  water,  most  of  us  have  a  more 
personal  and  intimate  memory  of  some  far- 
away brook  or  lake  of  our  childhood — some 
gay  little  friendly  brook,  perhaps,  that 
played  with  us,  whose  winning  ways  made 
us  love  all  other  brooks  for  its  sake.  Be- 
ginning its  tutelage  with  a  child,  such  a 
brook  weaves  a  silver  thread  of  poetry 
through  all  his  early  musings,  and  long  after 
he  has  passed  beyond  the  echo  of  its  music 
his  homing  heart  follows  its  winding  curves 
over  woodland  ledge  and  meadow,  as  his  feet 
followed  it  in  days  that  have  passed  into  the 
great  river  of  years.  It  becomes  at  once  a 
memory  and  an  inspiration. 

So  essentially  poetic  is  flowing  water  to 
eye  and  ear,  and  so  rich  in  its  symbolic  sug- 
gestions, that  always  it  seems  to  give  a 
gentle  challenge  to  poets  of  all  times:  "I 
sing — sing,  too,  my  little  brothers."  And 
the  challenge  has  been  accepted  by  almost 
every  poet  worthy  of  the  name,  from  David 
and  Job  to  the  least  erected  bard  of  our  own 

20 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

time.  Overwhelmed  by  the  baffling  miracles 
of  water,  Job  exclaimed  in  rhapsody: 

"He  bindeth  up  the  waters  in  his  thick 
clouds;  and  the  cloud  is  not  rent  under 
them."  "He  cutteth  out  rivers  among  the 
rocks."  "He  hath  compassed  the  waters 
with  bounds,  until  the  day  and  night  come 
to  an  end";  while  of  the  sea,  catching  its 
very  pitch,  he  wrote,  "Hitherto  shalt  thou 
come,  but  no  further:  and  here  shall  thy 
proud  waves  be  stayed."  These  and  many 
more  passages  like  them  show  clearly 
enough  that  Job  did  not  look  upon  water, 
in  any  of  its  forms,  merely  as  a  material 
necessity;  the  cloud  interested  him  more 
than  the  fact  that  its  contents  might  greatly 
affect  his  crops.  Like  all  poets,  he  felt  the 
poetic  spell  of  water,  as  David  also  felt  and 
reflected  it  in  his  Psalms. 

Whether  it  plays  a  role  itself,  or  serves 
as  a  highly  dramatic  background  for  charac- 
ters of  flesh  and  blood,  water  is  almost  as 
indispensable  to  literature  as  to  life.  What 
were  the  mythologies  of  Greece  and  Rome, 

or  its  great  epics,  without  the  sounding  sea, 

21 


i 

ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

where  the  gods  played  fast  and  loose  with 
mortals?  With  no  sea  as  an  undulating 
stage  for  his  bouts  with  gods  and  goddesses, 
an  amphibious  hero  like  Ulysses  would  be 
shorn  of  half  his  "godlike"  charm.  So  long 
has  one  followed  that  hero,  where  the  "rainy 
Hyades  vext  the  dim  sea,"  that  one  finds  it 
impossible  to  think  of  him,  even  in  his  old 
age,  settling  down  to  end  his  days  quietly 
with  Penelope  on  dry  land.  One  may  be 
sorry  for  his  intermittent  widow,  but  one 
must  agree  with  him  and  the  poets  that 
Ithaca  was  no  place  for  him,  but,  instead, 
the  murky  sea,  where  Neptune  could  furnish 
enough  conflict  to  meet  the  most  exacting 
dramatic  requirements.  Yielding  to  the 
same  sea-spell,  which  is  a  part  of  the  aura 
of  Ulysses,  Tennyson  puts  these  words  in 
the  mouth  of  the  aged  hero : 

"Push  off,  and  sitting  well  in  order,  smite 
The  sounding  furrows;  for  my  purpose  holds 
To  sail  beyond  the  sunset,  and  the  baths 
Of  all  the  western  stars,  until  I  die." 

Not  only  are  the  classics  infinitely  en- 
riched by  the  waters  which   overflow  the 

22 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

banks  of  life  into  literature,  but  by  mythical 
reflections  of  fountains,  lakes,  and  streams 
which  furnish  for  distinguished  shades  alle- 
gorical comfort  and  a  picturesque  passage 
to  The  Happy  Isles.  Lethe,  Styx,  and 
Acheron  have  won  their  right  to  existence 
as  surely  as  if  they  had  real  banks  with 
actual  water  running  between  them. 

Thus  all  the  enchantments  which  water 
lends  to  the  earth  are  duplicated  in  a  second 
incarnation  in  literature,  where  they  per- 
form the  same  mission  of  irrigating  its 
barren  places  and  making  its  deserts  to 
blossom  as  the  rose.  The  great  dramatic 
stories  of  the  Old  Testament,  The  Flood, 
The  Passage  through  the  Red  Sea,  The 
Smiting  of  the  Rock  by  Moses,  and  the 
Tale  of  Jonah,  do  for  the  historical  and 
genealogical  plains  of  the  Old  Testament 
what  springs  and  brooks  do  for  the  regions 
which  they  bless.  In  some  instances  the  elu- 
sive message  of  the  Water-spirit  has  been 
caught  with  such  perfect  accuracy  by  the 
poets  that  it  seems  a  clear  case  of  verbal  in- 
spiration. 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Many  of  the  most  haunting  poems  in  the 
English  language  were  thus  born  of  water; 
witness  Shelley's  "Cloud,"  Byron's  "Ocean," 
Arnold's  "Dover  Beach,"  and  Tennyson's 
"Break,  Break,  Break,"  "The  Brook,"  and 
"Crossing  the  Bar,"  not  to  mention  "The 
Passing  of  Arthur,"  whose  closing  scene,  in 
which  the  barge  glides  slowly  over  the  water, 
makes  an  ethereal  ending,  a  spiritual  climax, 
ideally  fitting  for  an  ideal  king.  Launcelot, 
or  a  great  many  kings,  whose  names  cour- 
tesy bids  one  suppress,  might  go  down  to 
dusty  death  the  usual  way  without  exciting 
reasonable  protest.  But  there  are  other 
characters  in  fiction,  and  perhaps  in  life, 
who,  in  their  passage  to  the  kingdom  of 
Ponemah,  should  go  by  water.  This  neces- 
sity was  keenly  felt  by  the  authors  of  the 
old  Anglo-Saxon  epics.  Unspoiled  by  the 
influences  of  an  effete  civilization,  which 
might  have  robbed  them  of  the  kinship  they 
felt  with  the  great  forces  of  nature,  the 
heroes  of  those  early  epics  made  a  fine  dra- 
matic finish,  after  the  manner  of  King 
Scyld: 

24 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

"Away  then  they  bare  him 

To  the  flood  of  the  current,  his  fond  loving  com- 
rades 
As  himself  he  had  bidden.  .  .  . 

The  ring-stemmed  vessel, 
Bark  of  the  atheling,  lay  there  at  anchor 

Icy  in  glimmer,  and  eager  for  sailing; 
The  beloved  leader  laid  they  down  there, 
Giver  of  rings,  on  the  breast  of  the  vessel. 

"And  a  gold-fashioned  standard  they  stretched  un- 

•der  heaven 
High  o'er  his  head,  let  the  holm-currents  bear 

him — 
Seaward  consigned  him. . . ." 

By  the  same  dramatic  intuitions  of  a  sixth 
sense  which  guided  the  Anglo-Saxon  writ- 
ers, Coleridge  used  the  sea  as  a  background 
for  his  most  memorable  poem,  as  Joaquin 
Miller  did  for  one  of  his  strongest — "Co- 
lumbus." In  a  word,  if  a  poet  will  only 
listen  closely  enough  to  its  tuition,  any 
brook,  river,  or  sea  will  half  write  his  poem 
for  him,  if  given  the  metrical  right  of  way, 
as  Schiller  proved  in  his  poem,  "Der 
Taucher": 

25 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

"Und  es  wallet  siedet  und  brauset  und  zischt, 
Wie  wenn  Wasser  mit  Feuer  sich  mengt." 

The  plenary  inspiration  of  the  water- 
spirit  is  almost  as  unmistakable  in  single 
words  of  every  language,  as  etymologists 
long  ago  discovered.  Minnehaha,  Shenan- 
doah,  Oscawana,  Musketaquit,  Thalatta, 
Weiden-Bach,  and  our  own  word,  brook, 
could  never  have  been  the  names  of  rocks 
or  mountains.  Even  more  striking  than  the 
water-conferred  music  and  limpidity  of 
single  words  are  the  poetic  clarity  and 
beauty  of  almost  every  figure  of  speech  in 
which  water  is  the  basis  of  the  simile.  The 
Bible  is  especially  rich  in  tropes  from  this 
source:  "Thy  judgments  are  a  great  deep" 
and  "Deep  calleth  to  deep,"  sang  David; 
and  again,  "All  thy  waves  and  thy  billows 
are  gone  over  me,"  and  "All  my  springs  are 
in  thee." 

Isaiah  also  abounds  in  matchless  figures 
of  the  same  kind:  "Then  had  thy  peace  been 
as  a  river";  "When  thou  passest  through 
the  waters,  I  will  be  with  thee." 

Nearly  all  the  poets  and  prophets  of  the 

26 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

Old  Testament  felt  and  made  use  of  this 
poetic  and  spiritual  quality  of  water,  and 
the  New  Testament,  in  a  heightened  degree, 
continues  in  the  sayings  of  Christ  and  his 
followers  the  beautiful  imagery  which  it  in- 
spired. Although  the  number  and  the 
strength  of  the  metaphors  from  this  source 
have  perceptibly  diminished  in  the  centuries 
succeeding  biblical  times,  there  are  still 
numerous  illustrations  in  every  generation 
which  show  that  the  poets  have  continued  to 
draw  some  of  their  finest  and  strongest 
figures  from  water  in  all  its  varied  forms. 
"And  joy  shall  overtake  us  as  a  flood," 
wrote  Milton;  and  Shakespeare: 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which,  taken  at  its  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries." 

Equally  happy  in  the  line  of  metaphorical 
inspiration  was  Wordsworth  in  his  poems 
which  have  the  most  spacious  atmosphere: 

". . . .  though  inland  far  we  be 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither." 
27 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Again,  in  Emerson's  "Two  Rivers"  we 
catch  the  fancy-loosing  spell  of  water: 

"Thou,  in  thy  narrow  banks,  art  pent: 
The  stream  I  love  unbounded  goes 
Through  flood  and  sea  and  firmament; 

Through  light,  through  life,  it  forward  flows. 

"I  see  the  inundation  sweet, 

I  hear  the  spending  of  the  stream 
Through  years,  through  men,  through  Nature  fleet, 
Through  love  and  thought,  through  power  and 
dream." 

Rossetti's  "glance  like  water  brimming 
with  the  sky,"  and  Shelley's  lines, 

"Whence  thou  dost  pour  upon  the  world  a  flood 
Of  harmony," 

are  other  illustrations  which  prove  how  much 
more  dependable  water  is  than  wine  as  a 
second  aid  to  inspiration. 

Even  the  twinkle  of  water — as  well  as 
some  of  its  brackish  bitterness — has  been 
successfully  reflected  in  a  poem  by  Ben 
Jonson : 

"And  sunk  in  that  Dead  sea  of  life, 
So  deep,  as  he  did  then  death's  waters  sup, 
But  that  the  cork  of  title  buoyed  him  up." 

28 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

Inspired  by  a  less  cynical  water-sprite  are 
Lowell's  lines  on  the  bobolink: 

"Half  hid  in  tiptop  apple-blooms  he  swings, 
Or  climbs  against  the  breeze  with  quiverin'  wings, 
Or,  givin'  way  to't  in  a  mock  despair, 
Runs  down  a  brook  o'  laughter  thru  the  air." 

With  more  temperamental  use  of  the 
emotional  pedals  is  the  water-music  of 
Heine's  "Fischermadchen" : 

"Mein  Herz  gleicht  ganz  dem  Meere, 
Hat  Sturm,  und  Ebb'  und  Fluth, 
Und  manche  schone  Perle 
In  seiner  Tiefe  ruht." 

It  is  thus  evident  that  not  only  for  all  the 
great  experiences  of  life  does  water  furnish 
a  deep  diapason  of  expression,  but  also  for 
the  lightest  gossamer  fancies,  which  it 
echoes  at  the  other  end  of  its  ten-octave  key- 
board, its  vapor,  mist,  and  dewdrop  end. 
Making  use  of  this  upper  end  and  the  soft 
pedal,  Shakespeare  improvised  his  fairy 
fancy — 

"I  must  go  seek  some  dewdrops  here 
And  hang  a  pearl  in  every  cowslip's  ear." 
29 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Again,  Keats,  at  the  bidding  of  a  sister 
muse,  made  as  dainty  numbers  in  several 
lines  in  "Endymion": 

"Just  as  the  morning  south 
Disparts  a  dew-lipped  rose, . . . 
To  summon  all  the  downiest  clouds  together 
For  the  sun's  purple  couch." 

A  similar  pianissimo  rendering  is  the 
graceful  air  one  finds  in  a  stanza  on  "Rain," 
by  Mr.  Aldrich: 

"We  knew  it  would  rain,  for  all  the  morn 

A  spirit  on  slender  ropes  of  mist 
Was  lowering  its  golden  buckets  down 
Into  the  vapoury  amethyst." 

Fingering  the  same  marvelously  respon- 
sive keys,  Holmes  gave  us  in  his  "Sun-Day 
Hymn"  this  religious  modulation  of  Aid- 
rich: 

"Our  rainbow  arch  thy  mercy's  sign, 
All  save  the  clouds  of  sin  are  thine." 

Nor  must  one  forget,  in  acknowledging 
the  debt  of  poetry  to  the  many-voiced 
waters,  the  metaphorical  wealth  which  is  a 
by-product  of  a  vast  number  of  nautical 

30 


WRIT  IN  WATER 

terms,  and  the  poetical  haloes  of  the  mythical 
inhabitants  of  the  deep.  Without  water,  we 
should  not  have  Triton  and  his  "bright- 
haired  daughters,"  the  Nereids,  sirens,  mer- 
maids, and  sprites  that  wind  in  and  out  of 
the  measures  of  the  poets,  leaving  behind 
them  eery  echoes  of  river  and  sea. 

Nor  should  we  have  the  exquisite  lines 
from  Keats,  written  under  a  similar  inspira- 
tion: 

"The  loveliest  moon  that  ever  silver'd  o'er 
A  shell  for  Neptune's  goblet." 

Though  the  land  of  the  poets  is  pre-emi- 
nently "a  land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  foun- 
tains and  depths,"  one  also  finds  in  the  table- 
lands of  prose  many  a  refreshing  spring  and 
river.  "Time  is  but  the  stream  I  go  a-fish- 
ing  in,"  said  Thoreau,  and  if  one  examines 
the  output  of  the  best  prose-writers  of  any 
century,  one  finds  that  it  is  often  by  the 
rhetorical  use  of  water  that  they  redeem 
their  work  from  literary  aridity. 

Finally,  the  good  offices  of  water  do  not 
cease  with  the  benefits  which  it  confers  on 

31 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

the  physical  and  literary  world.  Rising  still 
higher  within  the  invisible  banks  of  its  in- 
fluence, it  has  caused  an  overflow  of  sym- 
bolism in  the  moral  and  religious  world. 
Hence  the  use  of  water,  in  baptismal  rites, 
to  lodge,  if  possible,  a  suggestion  of  inward 
cleanliness.  Thus,  gratefully  numbering  the 
fine  and  varied  ministrations  of  water,  we 
discover  it  to  be  the  subtle  animating  spirit 
of  the  earth,  as  the  soul  is  the  pervasive  and 
animating  force  in  man. 


II 

THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

For  fairy  tales  of  magic  pall 
Beside  the  arts  the  dear  Earth  knows — 
The  Earth  that  hears  the  grass-blade  call 
And  works  enchantment  for  the  rose. 

T  T  AVE  we  not  all  noticed  that,  whenever 
•*••*•  a  tramping  party  sits  down  to  rest, 
the  gentlemen  of  the  company  instinctively 
bore  holes  in  the  earth  with  their  walking- 
sticks  and  the  women  with  the  tips  of  their 
parasols,  or  with  bits  of  sticks  if  they  hap- 
pen to  belong  to  the  Pan-emancipated  band 
which  scorns  parasols? 

The  evolutionist  might  tell  us  that  this 
boring,  punching  habit  is  a  vestigial  trace 
of  what  was  once  a  much  stronger  instinct 
in  our  very  remote  ancestors,  who  dug  larger 
holes  in  the  hills  and  lived  in  them.  Or,  a 
theologian  might  explain  it  as  a  modern 
adaptation  of  the  same  prying  instinct  which 

33 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

made  Eve  poach  on  Edenic  preserves  and 
still  tempts  her  modern  juvenile  descend- 
ants to  know  the  worst  about  their  dolls. 

The  consideration  of  this  interesting  habit 
of  punching  holes  in  the  earth,  however,  is 
only  a  mental  vestibule  to  the  theme  in 
hand,  which  is  the  earth  itself,  whose  magic 
properties  might  well  stimulate  a  mental 
boring  much  deeper  than  any  a  cane  could 
achieve.  Yet  despite  its  wondrous  wizardry 
in  behalf  of  man,  bird,  and  beast,  what  is 
more  scorned  and  ignored  than  the  plain, 
brown  soil,  trampled  under  foot  of  man? 
Even  our  catch-word,  "cheap  as  dirt,"  bears 
witness  to  the  popular  misvaluation  of  one 
of  the  greatest  of  Nature's  miracles.  Wear- 
ing more  gaudy  vestments,  made  in 
heaven,  clouds  and  rainbows  catch  the 
groundlings  and  even  win  the  poet's  praise 
by  the  lure  of  distance  and  the  coquetry  of 
evanescence,  But  the  humble,  steadfast  soil 
veils  its  virtues  in  plain,  homely  tints,  and 
wears  a  second  heavier  veil  of  familiarity, 
which  only  the  inward  eye  of  wonder  may 
pierce. 

34 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

Yet  give  it  any  kind  of  seed,  bulb,  or  slip 
to  work  upon,  and  a  small  pot  of  earth — even 
a  couple  of  handfuls — will  silently  give  you 
a  true  illustrated  fairy  story  which  will  put 
to  shame  all  the  cruder  human  arts  of  fiction. 
In  children's  tales,  which  some  of  us  never 
outgrow,  the  good  fairy  grants  the  favored 
hero  or  heroine  three  wishes.  But  the  good 
brown  Earth,  a  more  lavishly  indulgent  god- 
mother, gives  every  one  of  us  many  thousand 
wishes. 

Is  it  a  beautiful  green  carpet  you  wish 
for  your  lawn  or  meadow?  "Certainly,  my 
child,"  answers  the  kind  godmother.  "Wait 
but  a  few  days  while  I  call  my  genii,  the 
sun,  clouds,  and  earth-gnomes,  and  you  shall 
have  your  carpet." 

Or  is  your  wish  a  field  of  buttercups, 
daisies,  or  clover,  a  rosebush,  or  a  bed  of 
mignonette? 

With  the  same  maternal  willingness  to 
give  good  gifts,  the  under-mother  grants 
your  desire.  "You  must  wait  a  little  longer 
for  these  fair  marvels,  my  child,"  she  an- 
swers; "for  it  is  no  journeyman's  task  to 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

manufacture  in  my  secret  laboratory  the 
burnished  gold  chalices  of  millions  of  butter- 
cups. Nor  is  it  every  earth-gnome  whom 
I  would  trust  to  fashion  my  delicate  daisies 
with  their  hearts  of  gold.  But,  bless  you, 
child,  you  shall  have  them,  and  nobody  but 
the  buttercups,  daisies,  and  myself  shall 
know  how  'tis  done.  For  the  clover  and 
roses  you  may  need  to  wait  a  little  longer 
still,  since  I  must  employ  a  score  or  more 
of  mysterious  processes,  quite  beyond  your 
understanding,  to  give  them  their  beautiful 
fragrance.  The  rose,  especially,  requires 
weeks  and  months,  sometimes  years,  of  my 
most  occult  cunning  and  patience  to  give 
its  petals  their  velvet  texture  and  to  roll 
them  all  up  in  such  captivating  buds." 

"Trees?  Ah,  yes,  my  dears,  I  knew  you 
would  all  like  those,  so  I  began  working  on 
them  ages  ago.  These  are  my  richest,  rarest 
fairy  gifts  to  man;  and  little  he  thinks,  when 
he  recklessly  hews  them  down,  what  heaven- 
blessed  wisdom  I  have  put  into  them.  But 
would  you  ever  guess  from  the  looks  of  your 
dark  brown  mother  that  she  could  trans- 

36 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

mute  a  part  of  her  homely  substance  into 
redolent  forests  of  pine,  hemlock,  and  bal- 
sam, and  other  parts  into  deciduous  trees 
with  leaves  of  a  thousand  different  pat- 
terns?" 

"How  do  I  do  it?  Ah,  child,  does  your 
fairy-book  ever  tell  how  the  magician  turned 
the  charcoal  to  gold,  or  the  owl  back  again 
into  the  beautiful  princess  that  she  was? 
No  more  shall  I  spoil  my  stories  by  telling 
how  my  subterranean  magic  is  wrought. 
But,  O,  such  wonderful  secrets  as  some  of 
them  are!  Some  day  a  few  of  my  secrets 
will  be  found  out.  Others  will  baffle  the 
children  of  men  while  the  world  stands. 
One  of  the  most  complex  of  them  all  is  the 
way  I  can  supply  in  the  same  garden  bed 
different  colors  and  odors  to  plants  which 
are  growing  side  by  side.  I  never  mix  those 
children  up,  but  I  must  tend  them  as  care- 
fully as  you  humans  do  an  'incubator 
baby.'  " 

Thus  the  great  earth  magician  might 
speak  if  her  more  eloquent  silence  could  be 
translated  into  the  cruder  speech  of  man. 

37 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

But,  as  her  silence  would  seem  to  bear  wit- 
ness to  her  modesty,  she  might  not  continue 
to  enumerate  more  of  her  enchantments. 
Hence  some  recipient  of  her  bounty  may 
well  continue  to  celebrate  other  of  her  spells, 
runed  in  the  garden  of  the  humblest  man 
who  owns  one.  And  here,  in  her  fairy  gifts 
tested  by  the  sense  of  taste,  the  brown  en- 
chantress adds  to  the  complex  problem  of 
fragrance  the  equally  knotty  one  of  flavor. 
Or,  does  the  dear  old  wiseacre,  by  some 
complex  formula  of  her  desperately  deep 
chemistry,  create  something  which  is  at  the 
same  time  fragrance  to  the  nostrils  and 
flavor  to  the  palate?  Such  a  suggestion 
comes  to  us  from  the  odors  of  strawberries, 
pineapples,  and  cantaloupes. 

How  psychologically  wise,  moreover,  is 
the  wizardry  which  knows  man's  different 
reactions  from  the  various  colors  of  the 
fruits  and  vegetables  which  he  eats!  For 
days  when  the  heat  has  tampered  with  his 
temper,  she  offers  the  cool  green  of  the 
cucumber,  and  the  paler  shades  of  lettuce, 
limes,  and  lemons. 

38 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

With  equally  inerrant  prevision  for  the 
days  when  winter  steals  the  warmth  of  the 
sunshine,  the  earth-mother  supplies  rich, 
warm  tints  which  will  cheer  the  heart  of  man. 
Entering  into  a  compact  with  old  Sol,  she 
makes  an  autumn  collaboration  in  the  red 
cheeks  of  winter  apples,  the  jocund,  yellow 
pumpkin,  and  golden  corn.  Between  them 
they  also  duplicate  in  the  rich  hues  of  grapes 
and  plums  the  rose  and  purple  of  an  after- 
glow. 

Nor  does  the  wizardry  of  the  soil  begin 
to  exhaust  itself  in  the  wondrous  trees, 
blossoms,  and  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth.  Not 
the  richest  palace  in  the  enchanted  gardens 
of  fairy  tales  has  a  millionth  part  of  the 
treasures  which  the  earth  secretes  in  her 
veins  of  silver  and  gold  and  her  deep- 
buried  crypts  of  jewels  and  precious  stones. 
Strange  electric  currents,  also,  course 
through  her,  and  these  she  lends  to  men  like 
Marconi,  who  ask  for  only  one  wish,  but  that 
one  full  of  more  wonderful  possibilities  than 
a  hundred  wishes  of  the  average  man.  And 
still  other  strange  gifts,  as  yet  all  unguessed 

39 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

by  any  human  being,  she  holds  back  for  a 
keener-eyed  generation  who  shall  know  how 
to  ask  for  them  and  how  not  to  misuse  them; 
for  the  brown  enchantress  is  as  wise  in  her 
withholdings  as  in  her  givings. 

Nor  does  her  benevolence  end  with  gifts 
to  man  alone.  To  every  beast  of  the  forest 
and  field,  from  the  lion  to  the  rabbit,  she 
also  gives  the  gifts  of  a  good  fairy  god- 
mother. "Squatter's  rights"  she  grants  any 
quadruped  that  roams  the  earth,  and  the 
most  obscure  mole  or  woodchuck  may  have 
for  his  subterranean  home  the  pick  of  all  her 
forest  wilds.  Even  the  painfully  diligent 
ant  is  at  liberty  to  give  object-lessons  in 
"Ethical  Culture  and  Communism"  wher- 
ever she  can  and  will. 

For  robins  and  many  other  birds  she 
keeps  a  fine  larder  of  worms  and  bugs,  and 
for  these  same  worms  and  bugs  one  knows 
not  what  finer  diet  of  vermiculous  tid-bits. 
As  a  merely  nominal  charge  for  all  these 
services  she  levies  what  the  earth-worm 
might  call  his  road-tax.  By  this  canny 
measure  with  worms  and  by  imposing  a 

40 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

similar  tax  on  man,  which  he  works  out  with 
plow,  harrow,  hoe,  and  fertilizer,  the  shrewd 
old  enchantress  not  only  keeps  her  soil  light 
and  fertile,  but  lures  mankind  from  the  fatal 
pitfalls  of  idleness. 

Yet  is  our  brown  mother  not  all  fair, 
though  we  have  thus  far  spoken  her  fair,  as 
should  all  those  who  receive  her  rare  boun- 
ties. But,  like  human  nature  itself,  mother 
earth  has  many  unregenerate  streaks. 
While  in  one  man's  field  she  "hears  the 
corn,"  as  the  prophet  Hosea  says  the  earth 
will,  in  another  field  in  a  barren  country  she 
is  deaf  not  only  to  the  corn,  but  to  all 
burgeoning  desires  whatsoever  in  everything 
that  would  bloom  and  bring  forth  fruit. 
Yet  so  exceptional  is  this  apparent  indiffer- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  good  earth  that  one 
is  moved  to  put  in  a  plea  for  the  defendant 
rather  than  to  argue  the  case  for  the  plaintiff. 

Is  it,  after  all,  not  the  fault  of  the  heavens, 
which  do  not  "hear  the  earth"  when  it  calls 
for  rain,  as  Hosea  again  prophesied  that 
they  would?  Or,  if  the  earth  may  not  be 
exculpated  on  this  plea,  is  not  her  barren- 

41 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

ness  perhaps  another  deep  device  to  develop 
the  ingenuity  and  invention  of  man?  May 
not  her  methods  be  like  those  of  a  good  text- 
book which  gives  one  or  two  examples  and 
many  problems? 

Such  a  view  finds  support  in  the  wonder- 
ful records  of  irrigation  in  the  arid  plains  of 
the  West  and  elsewhere.  The  converse  of 
her  problem  of  aridity  the  earth  also  gives 
in  her  malarial  swamps  and  bogs,  which  on 
their  face  seem  anything  but  benevolent. 
But  a  study  of  these  flaws  in  the  nature  of 
our  fairy  godmother  and  the  deadly  coquetry 
of  her  quicksands  would  lead  us  by  analogy 
into  the  debatable  land  of  theology,  which 
has  its  own  moral  quicksands,  known  as 
temptations  and  "the  problem  of  evil." 

In  both  cases  it  would  seem  that  "the 
game's  the  thing" ;  that  is,  how  to  make  both 
the  physical  and  the  spiritual  desert  "re- 
joice, and  blossom  as  the  rose."  If  we  are 
willing  to  admit  (as  most  of  us  are)  that  we 
really  prefer  our  friends  and  neighbors  not 
so  perfect  that  we  cannot  see  them  making 
improvements  on  their  arid  regions  and 

42 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

waste  lands  and  moral  bogs,  we  must  also 
admit  that  our  good  earth-mother  may  be 
a  little  better  for  being  a  little  bad,  inasmuch 
as  she  is  more  stimulating  to  human  en- 
deavor than  she  would  be  with  no  bad 
streaks  in  her. 

Having  thus  satisfied  the  demands  of 
candor  in  our  estimate  of  enchantress 
earth,  our  love  and  loyalty  call  for  a  few 
more  words  of  appreciation. 

With  his  usual  insight  and  outsight, 
Booker  Washington  declares  that  the  best 
way  to  keep  the  Negro  clean  and  honest  is 
to  keep  him  close  to  the  soil.  This  clean, 
wholesome  influence  of  the  earth,  a  whole- 
someness  whose  very  breath  one  may  catch 
from  a  freshly  plowed  field,  is  a  force  whose 
strength  the  world  is  only  beginning  to  meas- 
ure. One  wonders  what  inhabitant  of  the 
city  ever  knew  how  much  he  had  lost  by  in- 
sulating himself  with  city  pavements  from 
healthful  contact  with  the  soil.  Standing  on 
the  good  brown  earth  (preferably  his  own 
little  lot  of  it),  sometimes  lying  on  it  when 
the  sun  has  made  it  warm  as  the  hand-clasp 

43 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

of  a  true  friend,  he  comes  to  understand  the 
larger  kinship  which  links  him  to  even  the 
lowest  forms  of  inorganic  life.  With  his 
hand  on  the  teeming  earth-mold,  the  bene- 
ficent mother  of  millions  of  fair  offspring, 
he  can  almost  feel  the  throb  of  the  great 
earth  heart  and  believe  with  Lafcadio  Hearn 
that  "The  stones  and  the  rocks  have  felt; 
the  winds  have  been  breath  and  speech; 
the  rivers  and  oceans  of  earth  have  been 
locked  into  chambers  of  hearts.  And  the 
palingenesis  cannot  cease  till  every  cosmic 
particle  shall  have  passed  through  the  ut- 
termost experience  of  the  highest  possible 
life." 

Closely  related  to  Hearn's  illuminated 
vision  of  matter  was  David's  intuition  that 
he  was  "curiously  wrought  in  the  lowest 
parts  of  the  earth."  And  from  this  inti- 
mation it  is  but  a  step  to  the  belief  in  the 
immanence  of  God — a  spirit  pervading  all 
matter  as  the  light  the  air,  and  continually 
directing  all  earth-wrought  miracles.  Thus 
viewed  no  longer  as  a  monstrous  mass  of  life- 
less soil,  but  as  matter  charged  with  an  in- 

44 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

finite  and  divine  force,  all  the  earth  beneath 
our  feet  becomes  holy  ground,  and  man  may 
go  back  to  it  at  the  sunset  of  life  with  as  little 
reluctance  as  falling  leaves  which  live  again 
in  flowers. 

For  it  is  not  alone  upon  seeds  and  roots, 
which  contain  their  own  life-germs,  that 
the  earth  exercises  her  mysterious  forces. 
Something  strikingly  like  the  healing  force 
of  nature,  which  knits  broken  bones  and  heals 
wounds,  the  earth  manifests  in  her  assimila- 
tions and  reincarnations  of  decayed  matter. 
This  habit  is  but  another  phase  of  the 
earth's  wholesome  philosophy  of  making 
the  best  of  things,  however  gruesome  those 
things  may  be. 

But  this  phase  of  the  earth's  beneficence 
has  been  celebrated,  as  only  a  poet  knows 
how,  by  Mr.  William  Vaughn  Moody: 

"Now  limb  doth  mingle  with  dissolved  limb 
In  Nature's  busy  old  democracy, 
To  flush  the  mountain  laurel  when  she  blows 
Sweet  by  the  southern  sea, 
And  heart  with  crumbled  heart 
Climbs  in  the  rose." 

45 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

What  the  earth  does  for  the  "muddy  ves- 
ture of  decay"  of  man  and  beast,  she  also 
does  for  every  other  unsightly  object  on  her 
premises.  If  a  farmer  has  old  stumps  and 
tumble-down  stone  walls,  the  earth  will  do 
her  best  to  drape  them  with  vines,  ferns,  and 
bramble-bushes.  The  recent  efforts  to  abol- 
ish unseemly  back  yards  is  comforting  proof 
that  mankind  at  last  is  taking  the  cue  from 
the  greatest  of  all  landscape  gardeners,  the 
earth. 

Finally,  considering  the  million  miracles 
of  the  soil,  one  is  as  much  struck  by  the  glad 
alacrity  with  which  the  earth  gives  good 
gifts  to  her  children  as  by  her  wondrous 
power  itself.  The  under-mother  likes  to 
say  "Yes"  to  her  children,  whether  they  ask 
for  pansies  or  potatoes,  or  for  clay  for  bricks 
and  pottery.  And,  although  in  some  states 
she  does  give  a  stone  with  the  bread,  if  not 
for  it,  she  might  justify  her  course  as  an  in- 
direct direction  for  raising  men. 

Then  here's  to  the  dear  enchantress, 
earth,  whom  we  love  in  her  fair  green  kirtle 
or  brown;  the  earth,  who  all  our  lives  is 

46 


THE  WIZARDRY  OF  THE  SOIL 

our  most  indulgent  nurse,  and,  even  when 
the  world  discards  us,  takes  us  back  to  her 
bosom  to  be  quickened  anew  with  the  pulse 
of  spring. 


47 


Ill 

THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

"I^ITERE  they  all  collected  in  a  volume, 
*  *  what  a  golden  treasury  of  poetry  and 
romance  would  be  the  thousand  records, 
grave,  sweet,  and  tender,  which  are  evoked 
from  every  one's  past  by  the  swift  coupling 
line  of  olfactory  association! 

When  one  considers  how  unrivaled,  as  a 
poetic  indexer  and  compiler,  the  nose  is,  it 
seems  almost  a  pity  that  its  purely  utilitarian 
service  in  keeping  man  supplied  with  breath 
should  overshadow  its  more  subtle  function 
of  opening  the  flood-gates  of  memory.  One 
feels,  moreover,  the  need  of  another  name 
for  the  nose  which  would  better  fit  its 
psychical  calling.  Nose  does  very  well  as 
a  name  for  an  organ  which  shares  with  the 
other  outer  senses  the  duties  of  a  bodyguard. 
But  as  a  name  for  that  marvelous  sense 
which  registers  and  indexes  some  of  the  most 

48 


THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

memorable  passages  of  our  experience,  the 
word  "nose"  is  like  a  copper  setting  for  an 
opal.  This  verbal  lack  is  not  felt  with  re- 
gard to  the  other  senses,  which  serve  so  many 
hours  of  the  day  as  statisticians  and  book- 
keepers of  the  hum-drum,  odorless  events  of 
life.  But  the  nose  will  none  of  these, 
making  its  entries  instead  from  those  fertile 
zones  of  human  experience  which  are  irri- 
gated by  poetic  emotions. 

To  the  million  characteristic  transactions 
of  Wall  Street,  as  to  its  hard,  dusty  pave- 
ments, the  nose  gives  no  heed.  But  the 
nosegay  of  arbutus,  which  Hester  wore  the 
last  time  she  saw  Gregory — ah,  yes,  of  that 
it  makes,  perchance,  a  ten-page  entry,  in  its 
own  indelible  symbols.  Not  only  does  it 
make  a  record  from  its  own  findings,  but  it 
subpoenas  all  the  other  senses,  by  its  wonder- 
ful tabulating  system  of  association.  From 
these,  it  gathers  the  last  detail  of  the 
mise-en-scene  in  such  a  case:  what  Hester 
said,  how  she  looked,  how  cold  her  hands 
were,  how  the  curtain  fluttered  in  the  window 
behind  her,  and  the  ominous  thud  of  the  f all- 

49 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

ing  log  in  the  fireplace.  Then  all  these  items 
are  filed  away  under  the  sesame  label  of 
"Odor  of  Arbutus"  Afterward,  years  and 
decades  pass;  but  let  Gregory  catch  but  an 
infinitesimal  whiff  of  the  fragrance  of  ar- 
butus, or  hear  the  word  spoken,  and  the 
curtains  of  memory  will  rise  on  the  old  scene, 
with  the  instantaneous  flashlight  that  follows 
the  turn  of  an  electric  switch. 

However  veiled  are  the  devices  of  dear  old 
dame  nature,  sooner  or  later  her  children 
are  sure  to  find  her  out.  When  she  gives 
us  an  organ  and  says,  "Use  this  to  fill  your 
lungs,"  we  know  that  it  is  only  her  Socratic 
way  of  asking  us  to  find  out  what  else  can 
be  done  with  a  nose. 

Then,  like  so  many  of  her  other  gifts,  we 
find  this  one  a  veritable  Aaron's  rod  in  its 
power  to  bud  and  branch  into  all  manner 
of  undreamed-of  possibilities. 

Even  while  its  possessor  is  yet  a  child,  this 
poet-sense  begins  its  work.  Like  a  bee,  it 
sips  something  from  every  fragrant  blossom 
and  stores  it  up  in  the  honey-cells  of 
memory.  And  as  the  flavor  of  honey  made 

50 


THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

by  bees  varies  widely  according  to  the  kind 
and  combination  of  sweets  culled,  so  does 
the  flavor  of  the  memories  distilled  by  the 
nose. 

One  of  the  most  grievous  deprivations  of 
city-bred  children  comes  through  the  losses 
which  they  suffer  in  fragrant  associations 
which  are  the  inalienable  gift  of  the  child 
of  the  country.  Could  any  coffers  buy  the 
memories  of  one  who  during  the  years  of 
childhood  had  inhaled  the  holy  fragrance 
of  early  morning  in  the  country,  when  the 
sunbeams  are  sipping  the  dew  from  the 
grasses?  Nature's  very  breath  this  is,  given 
back  to  heaven  as  pure  and  sweet  as  heaven 
gave  it  to  her.  But  the  feverish  breath  of 
the  city  furnishes  evidence  enough  for  an  ac- 
curate diagnosis  of  its  disease. 

Who,  again,  for  any  mercenary  values 
would  surrender  his  memories  of  forests, 
where  hemlock,  spruce,  pine,  balsam,  and 
woodland  blossoms  mingle  their  incense  to 
the  early  morn?  Related  in  its  wholesome 
purity  to  the  fragrance  of  the  morning  and 
the  forest  is  the  fresh  odorless  odor  which 

51 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

one  brings  in  on  one's  clothes  and  person 
after  a  long  walk  on  a  cold  winter  day. 
What  white  is  to  the  colors,  this  fragrant 
freshness  is  to  the  more  positive  perfumes. 
Windows  that  have  just  been  washed  and 
linen  dried  in  the  wind  and  sun  also  acquire 
this  wholesome  redolence,  a  redolence  which 
one  might  reasonably  fancy  is  psychically 
duplicated  by  the  aura  of  a  clean  soul. 

Perhaps  the  next  chromatic  variation  from 
the  pure,  white  fragrance  of  cleanliness  is 
the  salt  odor  exhaled  by  the  sea;  for  nature 
has  the  same  delicately  graded  scale  for  her 
perfumes  that  she  uses  for  the  tints  of  blos- 
soms and  the  plumage  of  birds.  Between 
the  pianissimo  fragrance  of  spring  beauties 
and  the  heavy  perfume  of  lilacs  and 
hyacinths,  she  knows  how  to  distil,  from  less 
to  more,  a  thousand  delicate  variations, 
each  producing  a  different  psychical  reac- 
tion. To  the  intimate  spiritual  recesses 
which  are  opened  by  mignonette,  the  locust 
has  no  key;  neither  has  the  spicy  nasturtium 
or  poppy  any  sesame  for  the  holy  of  holies 
whose  high  priestess  is  the  vestal  lily  of  the 

52 


THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

valley.  From  odors  like  those  of  pine,  hem- 
lock, balsam,  larch,  and  spruce,  whose  domi- 
nant effect  is  tonic  wholesomeness,  nature 
passes  by  imperceptible  gradations  to  per- 
fumes that  are  heavy,  nauseating,  obnoxious, 
and  mephitic. 

As  a  roughly  representative  scale  of  her 
aromatic  keyboard,  one  might  give  spring 
beauties,  new-mown  hay,  mignonette,  ar- 
butus, bayberry,  mint,  thyme,  sweet  fern, 
sweet  peas,  locust,  hyacinth,  lilacs,  magnolia, 
uicotina,  musk,  and  civet.  Of  course  the 
lower  end  of  the  scale  may  be  carried  on 
much  further,  even  to  include  the  noisome 
pestilence  of  scriptural  record.  Of  all  these 
discordant  odors,  however,  the  nostrils  make 
only  rebel  entries  on  the  pages  of  memory. 
Fortunately,  the  number  of  such  entries  is 
almost  negligible  in  comparison  with  the 
savory  salutations  with  which  nature  greets 
her  children. 

In  addition,  moreover,  to  all  her  perfumes 
which  seem  to  unlock  the  more  spiritual 
doors  of  poetry  and  romance,  nature  has 
another  series  of  odors,  obviously  designed 

53 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

to  produce  more  complex  effects.  The  fra- 
grance of  all  kinds  of  fruits,  and  of  some 
vegetables,  like  celery  and  cucumbers,  stim- 
ulates not  only  the  fancy  but  the  appetite 
as  well.  In  other  words,  nature  offers  the 
nostrils  an  etherealized  sample  of  her  gift 
before  she  offers  a  bite.  For  what  is  an  odor 
but  a  sublimated  mist  of  its  source,  and  hence 
a  true  sister  of  the  cloud  which  is  sublimated 
and  illuminated  water? 

One  perceives  a  nice  fitness,  too,  in  na- 
ture's custom  of  first  offering  the  aromatic 
shadow  to  the  finer  sense  before  offering  the 
substance  to  its  cruder  fellow.  Almost  it 
looks  a  hint,  also,  that  the  recipient  should 
likewise  offer  up  some  incense  of  gratitude. 
So  it  may  happen,  as  I  think  it  often  does, 
that  a  pleasant  odor  stimulates  centers  far 
removed  from  those  that  are  purely  gusta- 
tory. We  can  thus  understand  that  for  some 
people  a  swinging  censer  may  do  what  an 
organ  prelude  does  for  others. 

Notable  among  odors  producing  complex 
stimuli  are  those  given  out  by  oranges, 
apples,  parched  corn,  strawberries,  rasp- 

54 


THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

berries  and  the  delicate  bouquet  of  choice 
wines.  So  distinctly  pleasant  and  cheerful 
is  the  fragrance  of  apples,  especially,  that  a 
dish  of  them  is  always  good  company  to 
have  near  one.  Neither  does  one  tire  so 
easily  of  the  fragrance  of  apples  as  of  the 
more  pungent  odors  of  rarer  fruits — a  result 
undoubtedly  premeditated  by  nature.  Not 
only  impersonal  recollections,  such  as  belong 
to  the  Apple  of  Discord,  the  Apples  of 
Hesperides,  and  the  Apples  of  Sodom,  but 
far  more  intimate  memories  waken  with  a 
breath  from  this  genial  fruit.  To  Matilda, 
the  odor  of  the  rich-hued  Fameuse  may 
bring  up  a  far-off  vision  of  the  fair-haired 
boy  lover  who  used  to  fill  her  school-desk 
with  apples  of  this  particular  variety.  Or, 
again,  some  sedate  judge,  when  he  catches 
the  aroma  of  a  Northern  Spy,  may  see  all  the 
details  of  a  boyish  escapade  in  a  neighbor's 
orchard. 

The  necromancy,  or,  rather,  the  leuco- 
mancy  of  the  fragrance  of  popping  corn, 
furnishes  a  captivating  study  of  nature's 
very  human  Santa  Claus  habit  of  enhancing 

55 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

the  value  of  some  of  her  gifts  by  adding  to 
them  the  element  of  surprise  and  mystery. 
In  other  realms,  the  pearl  in  the  oyster,  and 
the  richly  blended  coloring  on  the  backs  of 
toads  and  frogs  are  cases  in  point.  Whether 
nature,  in  pursuing  this  course,  wishes 
merely  to  add  zest  to  the  pleasures  she  gives, 
or  slyly  to  symbolize  the  moral  that  one 
should  not  too  hastily  judge  by  appearances, 
one  may  not  know.  But  certain  it  is  that 
one  may  make  a  prolonged  examination  of 
her  benefactions  to  man  in  myriad  lines  and 
in  every  one  there  will  be  found  several  ex- 
amples of  her  habit  of  hiding  the  thimble 
where  she  is  almost  sure  her  children  will  not 
get  warm  for  years  or  even  centuries. 

Returning  to  the  corn,  by  which  the  reader 
has  been  sidetracked,  if  one  had  never  seen 
its  white  fragrant  petals  bloom  in  a  well- 
shaken  popper,  who  ever  would  have  guessed 
by  mere  inspection  of  its  hard,  dry,  odor- 
less kernels,  that  heat  could  instantly  wiz- 
ardize  them  into  deliciously  redolent  blos- 
soms? 

A  still  more  striking  illustration  of  na- 

56 


THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

lure's  habit  of  hiding  aromatic  treasures  in 
most  improbable  places  is  the  fragrant  and 
costly  ambergris,  secreted  by  the  intestines 
of  the  sperm  whale. 

Another  aroma  of  complex  ministrations 
is  the  unique  fragrance  of  maple  sugar  in 
the  various  stages  of  its  evaporation  between 
sap  and  the  solid  commodity  known  to  com- 
merce. Only  a  visit  to  a  sugar-camp  in  the 
woods  will  enable  one  to  understand  what 
a  series  of  picturesque  scenes  from  the  slides 
of  the  past  may  be  thrown  upon  the  screen 
of  memory  by  one  little  whiff  from  boiling 
maple  syrup,  as  it  nears  the  stage  of  sugar. 

Nor  should  one  omit  from  the  roll  of 
olfactory  honors  those  fumes  which  arise 
from  debatable  sources.  Whatever  inter- 
linear prods  may  be  made  by  an  unco  Puri- 
tan sense,  a  truly  catholic  candor  will  not 
deny  a  tribute  of  praise  to  the  secular  incense 
which  arises  from  a  good  cigar  or  a  pot  of 
ingratiating  coffee  or  tea.  If  nature  frowns 
upon  the  use  of  these  gifts  of  hers,  she  was 
certainly  guilty  of  plain  coquetry  in  "lead- 
ing men  on"  by  their  seductive  aromas. 

57 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Near  cousins  of  the  fumes  of  nicotine  are 
the  odors  of  spices  which  lend  a  halo  of 
poetry  to  the  creative  operations  of  the 
kitchen.  There  is  always  something  cheer- 
ing in  the  olfactory  rumor  that  sweet  pickles, 
mince  pies,  and  fruit  cakes  are  in  the  mak- 
ing. Even  a  cook — who  may  have  but  a 
short  suit  in  amiability — by  association  with 
her  fragrant  works,  is  invested,  like  the 
Vale  of  Tempe,  with  charms  not  her  own. 
By  the  same  necromancy  of  olfactory  as- 
sociation, a  certain  street  in  the  business  sec- 
tion of  New  York  always  wears  for  the 
writer  an  aureola,  because  it  is  perfumed  its 
entire  length  by  the  wholesale  house  of  an 
importer  of  Indian  spices.  Passing  from 
the  neighboring  thoroughfares  to  this  par- 
ticular street,  is  like  finding  a  clump  of  rose- 
bushes in  a  desert,  or  a  Shakespearian  sonnet 
in  a  newspaper. 

In  addition  to  redolent  delights  shared  by 
most  of  mankind,  one  must  not  forget  those 
more  sophisticated  raptures  known  only  to 
the  nostrils  of  bibliomaniacs.  But  what  un- 
hallowed pen  may  write  of  the  poignant 

58 


THE  REDOLENT  WORLD 

ecstasy  which  is  wakened  by  the  odor  of  Rus- 
sia, calf,  sheep,  and  morocco,  or  by  the  awe- 
inspiring  mustiness  with  which  a  book  makes 
solemn  affidavit  of  its  age?  A  sandal-wood 
paper-knife,  also,  which  is  a  paper-knife  and 
nothing  more  to  him  that  hath  no  nose  to 
smell,  to  the  evolved  nostril  is  a  Mercurial 
passport  to  all  the  dream-land  wonders  of 
the  Orient. 

Possibly  some  of  us  have  hitherto  ignored 
the  significance  of  the  services  rendered  by 
our  unhonored  noses.  But  if  we  will  here- 
after take  note  of  their  findings  in  the  realm 
of  poetry  and  romance,  we  shall  discover 
that  the  winged  meditations  which  they 
rouse  act  as  ventilators  to  musty  thoughts 
and  sentiments. 

From  even  this  fragmentary  survey  of 
the  olfactory  treasures  which  nature  has 
stored  up  for  us,  it  is  evident  that  though 
blind  and  deaf,  if  we  could  only  smell  the 
world,  we  should  still  pronounce  it  good. 
For  nature  is  redolent,  not  alone  in  the  sea- 
son when  all  her  flowery  censers  are  swing- 
ing in  the  breeze,  but  also  when  the  autumnal 

59 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

ebb  of  leafy  tides  brings  the  "sweet  odor 
of  decay."  Dying,  the  leaves  and  frost- 
touched  ferns  (notably  the  Dicksonia,  or 
hay-scented)  fill  the  air  with  a  subtle  mel- 
low fragrance,  which  stirs  alike  the  embers 
of  the  past  and  the  still  glowing  hopes  of 
the  future. 

Baffled  by  the  sweet  mystery  of  it  all,  one 
marvels  yet  again  how  nature  from  her 
same  old  mixing-bowl  of  brown  earth, 
stirred  by  long  sunbeam  fingers,  can  produce 
a  million  different  odors.  And  though  for 
aeons  and  aeons  she  carries  on  her  sweet  nec- 
romancy under  our  very  eyes — nay,  more, 
under  our  very  noses — we  still  know  as  little 
how  she  does  it  as  the  first  man  who  ever 
yielded  to  the  enchantment  of  a  rose. 


IV 
FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

"For  the  world  was  built  in  order, 
And  the  atoms  march  in  tune; 
Rhyme  the  pipe,  and  Tune  the  warder, 
The  sun  obeys  them,  and  the  moon." 

—  R.  W.  E. 


stars  are  still  in  their  shining;  and, 
in  the  making  of  giant  trees,  billions  of 
acres  of  grass,  and  intermingled  blossoms, 
there  comes  never  a  sound  from  the  muffled 
machinery  of  nature's  power-house.  Who 
but  the  finest-eared  may  catch  the  feather- 
fall  of  the  snow-flakes,  that  build  their  minia- 
ture mountains  of  winter  and  weave  white 
draperies  for  the  landscape  ?  Even  the  deep- 
est sockets  and  hollows  of  the  hardest  rocks 
were  sculptured  by  no  harsh,  grating  sound, 
but  musically  chiseled  to  a  water-chant  of 
the  centuries.  The  few  rare  exceptions  to 
nature's  law  of  silence  come  much  like  the 
studied  discords  of  music  to  heighten  the 

61 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

effect  of  the  harmony.  Earthquakes,  vol- 
canic eruptions,  cyclones,  and  thunderstorms 
would  make  chaos  of  an  orderly  world  if 
they  came  every  day ;  but,  coming  rarely  and 
with  sublimity,  the  word  "noise"  is  too  mean 
a  word  to  be  applied  to  them.  Rather  do 
they  seem  like  the  majestic  gavel  thumps  of 
the  Almighty  to  call  the  attention  of  a  world 
grown  deaf  and  blind  to  the  silent,  everyday 
miracles  of  creation. 

In  the  early  dawn  of  chaos,  when  worlds 
were  making,  there  was  undoubtedly  a  sea- 
son when  there  were  cosmic  crashings  not 
meet  for  ears  of  flesh  and  blood.  But  that 
did  not  matter,  so  long  as  there  were  no 
human  ears  near  to  be  deafened  by  them. 
Before  man  was  allowed  to  appear,  the 
divine  fiat,  "Let  there  be  silence,"  had  gone 
forth.  "The  whole  world  is  at  rest  and  is 
quiet,"  wrote  the  prophet  Isaiah,  but  the 
lesser  world  of  man's  creation  is  yet  in  a 
semichaotic  condition,  and  the  law  of  silence, 
though  it  has  been  passed  in  the  upper  house 
of  the  elect,  is  yet  a  long  way  from  enact- 
ment. So  there  still  ascends  to  heaven  an 

62 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

appalling  volume  of  noise,  made  by  the 
bang,  whang,  clang,  grate,  grind,  rasp, 
jingle,  whir,  whistle,  and  clatter  which  ac- 
company the  manufacture  and  use  of  almost 
everything  used  by  man,  from  the  genera- 
tion of  the  force  which  runs  cable  cars  to  the 
simplest  device  for  sharpening  a  scythe  or 
a  pair  of  scissors. 

One  of  the  chief  offenders  against  the  pub- 
lic peace  is  the  automobile  with  open  muffler, 
whose  blaring  shriek,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  has  made  any  public  thoroughfare  a 
via  dolorosa  for  the  pedestrian,  especially  if 
he  suffers  from  any  disease  of  the  ear.  But 
movements  are  on  foot  to  lessen  these  shocks 
to  the  nervous  system — shocks  whose  evil 
results  have  never  been  adequately  measured. 
Little  by  little,  man  is  trying  to  banish,  as 
nature  does,  audible  or  other  evidence  of 
effort  from  his  works. 

Those  who  watch  this  gradual  diminution 
of  noise  from  the  operation  of  men's  inven- 
tions can  no  longer  doubt  that  the  time  is 
coming  when  man  will  have  made  his  ma- 
chinery and  the  streets  of  his  cities  so  noise- 

63 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

less  that  the  transition  to  fields  Elysian  will 
be  no  abrupt  change  to  totally  different  con- 
ditions, but  a  natural  and  easy  gradation  to 
a  blessed  country  where  even  the  jarring 
sounds  audible  only  to  the  spirit  will  be 
absent.  Rubber-footed  tires,  asphalt  pave- 
ments, and  the  subdued  hum  of  the  modern 
sewing-machine  (compared  with  the  fearful 
threshing-tread  of  those  of  other  days),  all 
tell  the  same  story.  Man  has  begun  to  dis- 
cover that  no  machine  is  perfected  until  it 
makes  no  noise. 

In  nature's  world,  which  is  God's,  the  un- 
surpassed model  for  noiseless  perfection  of 
mechanism  is  the  human  body,  in  which  all 
the  parts  are  fitly  joined  together  so  that  a 
hundred  complex  processes  are  going  on 
simultaneously  in  this  marvelous  labora- 
tory, and  yet  no  sound  is  heard.  Bones, 
blood,  hair,  nails,  tissues,  and  countless 
secretions  are  being  manufactured  in  abso- 
lute silence.  Even  the  semi-voluntary  move- 
ments of  the  body  involved  in  breathing, 
bending  the  fingers,  legs,  and  toes,  are  noise- 
lessly performed;  but  in  the  still  finer  forces 

64 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

of  mind  and  heart,  which  are  stronger  than 
all  the  other  powers  of  man's  world,  one  finds 
the  acme  of  noiselessness.  For  who  can  hear 
a  thought,  or  catch  the  varying  heart-vibra- 
tions, which  make  or  mar  the  happiness  of 
the  world?  and  who  but  a  spirit  can  hear  the 
swift,  wingless  flight  of  imagination  or  the 
firm,  footless  tread  of  the  will? 

Soundless,  also,  are  nearly  all  the  material 
translations  of  what  is  called  genius  in  man. 
Whatever  speaks  from  the  soul  of  the 
painter  is  transferred  silently  to  his  canvas 
with  the  soft  strokes  of  a  brush.  The 
author's  fancies,  no  less  quietly,  are  clad  with 
the  gauze  of  verbal  vestments  whose  fabric 
is  woven  of  symbols  as  fittingly  intangible 
as  the  thoughts  they  cover.  Even  in  sculp- 
ture, though  the  first  rough  outlining  re- 
quires the  noise  of  chipping,  all  the  fine 
finishing  work  must  be  done  with  so  fine  a 
touch  that  it  is  next  to  noiseless.  The  other 
sister  art,  music,  above  all,  triumphs  over 
noise  by  means  of  regulating  irregular  vibra- 
tions so  that  noise  is  changed  to  a  concord  of 

sweet  sounds. 

65 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

In  society's  long-accepted  canon  that  no 
lady  or  gentleman  is  ever  loud-voiced  or 
boisterous,  one  discovers  again  the  instinctive 
human  protest  against  noise — a  protest  that 
grows  stronger  the  higher  one  mounts  in  the 
scale  of  civilization.  "The  loud  laugh  that 
speaks  the  vacant  mind"  speaks  a  great 
many  other  vacancies  as  well;  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  loud,  harsh,  strident  voice  or 
the  voice  of  the  alarm-clock  variety,  whose 
tones  are  delivered  in  a  jerky  staccato. 

"Don't  you  think,"  asks  the  heroine  in 
"Aylwin,"  "the  poor  birds  must  sometimes 
feel  very  much  distressed  at  hearing  the 
voices  of  men  and  women,  especially  when 
they  all  talk  together?  The  rooks  mayn't 
mind,  but  I'm  afraid  the  blackbirds  and 
thrushes  can't  like  it." 

In  every  department  of  knowledge  and 
speculation,  the  loud  accent  of  certainty  is 
giving  way  to  a  more  mellow  tone  of 
modesty.  In  obedience  to  this  beneficent 
law  of  evolution,  the  modern  sane  and  quiet 
style  of  pulpit  oratory  has  taken  the  place 
of  the  old  style  of  ecclesiastical  eloquence,  in 

66 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

which  a  prodigious  amount  of  thundersome 
declamation  and  desk-thumping  was  deemed 
necessary — a  notion  whose  logic  resembles 
that  of  the  man  who  imagines  that  emphatic 
oaths  give  force  to  his  remarks. 

Some  people  with  emotional  requirements, 
which  nothing  but  loud  hosannas  can  satisfy, 
find  occasion  for  alarm  in  the  quieter  tone 
and  temper  of  the  modern  pulpit;  but  such 
fearful  ones  should  meditate  on  the  words 
of  Isaiah,  who  declared  that  the  effect  of 
righteousness  is  quietness.  It  is  only  among 
people  so  benighted  that  righteousness  comes 
as  an  exciting  novelty  that  religious  fervor 
gives  noisy  evidence  of  itself,  like  the  bub- 
bling fermentation  of  yeast  in  liquors;  but, 
when  the  yeast  has  thoroughly  worked,  the 
bubbling  and  fermentation  cease. 

The  same  force  which  has  been  making 
for  quiet  strength  in  the  field  of  religion  will 
eventually  abolish  noise  from  every  depart- 
ment of  man's  activity ;  but,  at  present,  man 
still  shakes  his  baby  rattle  in  the  calm  pres- 
ence of  his  mother  nature.  Some  of  her 
own  lapses  from  gentle  decorum  must  never- 

67 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

theless  be  recorded:  namely,  the  bray  of  the 
donkey,  the  hysterical  staccato  of  hens,  the 
metallic  meditations  of  the  guinea  fowl,  and 
the  voice  of  the  turtle-dove,  unsoftened  by 
scriptural  association.  But  compare  with 
the  deafening  turmoil  of  any  great  city 
the  noble  serenity  of  a  forest,  or  the  dreamy 
murmur  of  grasses  on  the  meadows  and 
plains.  In  the  gentle  andante  of  wind-blown 
grasses,  nature  seems  to  be  practicing  mod- 
ulations from  pure  silence  into  the  first  key 
of  audible  music,  though  the  faint  sh,  sh, 
of  falling  snowflakes  possibly  comes  before 
the  grassy  measures  in  her  chromatic  scale. 
Continuing  her  modulations  from  the 
songs  of  the  meadow  grasses,  nature  passes 
to  the  rustling  cadences  of  the  cornfield, 
where  she  not  only  fills  the  ear  with  never- 
to-be-forgotten  melodies,  but  casts  her  spell 
over  the  other  senses  as  well.  Waving  her 
invisible  baton,  she  sets  all  the  purple-tas- 
seled  heads  bowing  to  each  other,  in  stately 
minuet,  while  the  rustling  of  the  long, 
dry  leaves  carries  out  the  illusion  of  the 
rhythmic  flutter  of  silken  petticoats.  This 

68 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

is  only  a  beginning  of  nature's  improvisa- 
tions on  what  might  be  called  her  dry 
scales. 

Still  deeper  and  sweeter  are  the  harmon- 
ies which  she  evokes  from  her  liquid  meas- 
ures. In  the  pattering  rain,  which  is  really 
only  a  liquid  transposition  of  her  lullaby  of 
the  leaves,  she  sings  us  a  cradle-song;  in  the 
rill,  a  simple  folk-song;  in  the  brook,  a 
slightly  fuller  melody;  in  the  river,  a  four- 
part  hymn  with  chorus;  in  the  waterfall,  a 
solemn  chant;  in  the  cataract,  a  glorious 
magnificat;  while  in  the  ocean  tides  and 
breakers  she  gives  us  her  masterpiece,  for 
whose  orchestral  performance  she  engages 
the  leadership  of  the  moon. 

Nor  does  nature  stop  with  what  might 
be  called  the  tuneless  passages  of  her  classic 
music;  for  who  but  she  composed  the  ex- 
quisite melodies  which  pour  from  the  throats 
of  the  wood  and  hermit  thrushes,  the  song 
sparrow,  bluebird,  lark,  and  bobolink? 
And,  once  again,  with  the  throats  of  myriad 
birds,  one  finds  our  mother  of  infinite  variety 
multiplying  and  adding  to  the  effects 

69 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

wrought  by  water.  Between  the  pure, 
spiritual  notes  of  the  wood-thrush  and  the 
mechanical  iteration  of  the  oven-bird  and 
red-eyed  vireo,  she  gives  us  hundreds  of 
melodies,  sweet,  rollicking,  ecstatic,  weird, 
pensive,  melancholy,  serene,  and  tender.  In 
the  same  class  with  the  instinct-taught  music 
of  birds  belongs  the  merry,  aimless  whistling 
of  men  and  boys  who  have  the  cheerful  dis- 
position of  a  bobolink. 

Here,  as  we  approach  the  merging  line 
where  human  voices  are  half  nature's  and 
half  art's,  one  may  fitly  consider  some  of  the 
musical  triumphs  of  man.  Yet  before  any 
purely  audible  effects  receive  attention,  ac- 
knowledgment should  be  made  to  some  of 
those  unheard  melodies  which  are  sweeter. 
Notable  among  these  is  the  still  music  of 
poetry,  which  may  reach  the  inward  ear 
through  the  eye  alone.  Only  a  cursory 
glance  at  the  metrical  treasures  of  the  world 
proves  how  easily  a  master  spirit  may  paral- 
lel in  whatever  medium  he  chooses  to  use 
any  effect  wrought  by  a  sister  art. 

Though   veiled   by   its   utilitarian   ends, 

70 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

every  great  language  is  a  marvelous  instru- 
ment of  a  million  octaves,  made  through 
long  centuries  and  by  unnumbered  races,  in 
instinct  and  habits,  perchance,  as  wide 
asunder  as  the  poles.  Every  thought  and 
emotion  of  man,  from  the  depths  of  his 
despair  to  the  summit  of  his  highest  ecstasy 
and  aspiration,  has  added  its  note  and  half- 
note,  stop  and  pedal,  to  this  enchanted  in- 
strument. Not  only  man,  with  all  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  the  tides  of  his  life,  and  all  the 
lower  animals,  beast,  bird,  and  fish,  but  every 
beauty  of  nature  has  echoed  itself  into  its 
endless  gamut,  enriching  and  mellowing  it, 
like  man,  with  an  untold  number  of  associa- 
tions. 

Though  the  use  of  this  marvelous  instru- 
ment is  free  to  the  whole  world,  only  those 
who  have  harmony  in  themselves  can  bring 
harmony  out  of  it.  One  man  sits  down  to 
use  this  most  wonderful  of  all  instruments, 
and  desecrates  its  latent  music  by  playing 
with  one  finger  the  cheapest  kind  of  rag- 
time music  of  language.  Another,  like  a 
Pan-blessed  hermit,  around  whom  all  the 

71 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

birds  of  the  forest  hover,  knows  how  to  call 
forth  all  those  throbbing,  singing,  sighing 
words  that  wake  the  haunting  echoes  of 
poetry,  as  they  were  wakened  in  Alfred 
Noyes's  poem  on  "Drake": 

"Bring  on  the  pride  and  pomp  of  old  Castile, 
Blazon  the  skies  with  royal  Aragon, 
The  purple  pomp  of  priestly  Rome  bring  on; 
And  let  her  censers  dusk  the  dying  sun, 
The  thunder  of  her  banners  on  the  breeze 
Following  Sidonia's  glorious  galleon 
Deride  the  sleeping  thunder  of  the  seas, 
While  twenty  thousand  warriors  chant  her  litanies." 

To  the  man  who  uses  only  the  hardware 
receptacles  of  thought  and  feeling,  poetry 
is  only  an  unpractical  habit  of  stringing 
words  together  to  make  them  rhyme;  but  the 
poet  is  justified  of  his  own,  who  know  that 
his  verbal  magnetism  means  a  sensitive  and 
accurate  perception  of  the  chromatic  tones 
of  thought  and  feeling  produced  by  all  the 
reactions  of  life. 

The  other  profile  of  this  fact  was  given 
by  some  one  (whose  name  I  forget)  who 
said,  "If  you  see  deeply  enough,  you  see 

72 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

musically,"  a  truth  more  beautifully  stated 
by  George  Eliot  in  her  most  inspired  mood: 

"May  I  reach 

That  purest  heaven,  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Enkindle  generous  ardor,  feel  pure  love, 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused, 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 
So  shall  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world." 

With  eyes  thus  anointed  with  the  dews  of 
poesy,  one  sees  that  the  unheard  melodies  of 
the  world  receive  continual  contributions 
from  all  those  wholesome  agencies  (man's 
or  nature's)  which  might  be  called  the  tun- 
ing forces  of  the  universe.  Chief est  among 
them  is  love,  which  has  been  known  to  work 
marvels,  as  Paul  testified  it  would,  with  the 
most  discordant  instruments. 

Working  also  in  the  same  interests  of 
silent  harmony  are  all  the  forms  of  modern 
psychotherapy,  which  attempt  to  produce 
harmony  in  the  body  by  tuning  the  soul. 
Among  the  varied  phases  of  this  movement 

73 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

is  an  interesting  revival  of  the  ancient  prac- 
tice of  using  music  to  heal  disease,  mental 
and  physical.  Without  intending  to  bring 
any  charge  of  plagiarism  against  the  recent 
methods  of  treatment,  one  may  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  David  successfully  used  the 
same  method  with  Saul.  When  the  soul  of 
that  mercurial  king  was  disquieted  within 
him,  David,  with  his  harp,  accomplished 
what  an  indefinite  number  of  soft  answers 
might  have  failed  to  do.  The  Greeks,  also, 
successfully  treated  rheumatism  with  a  con- 
cord of  sweet  sounds ;  and  it  is  recorded  that 
Terpander,  with  his  harp,  quelled  an  insur- 
rection in  Sparta. 

The  advantage  of  substituting  music  for 
the  soft  answer  can  easily  be  shown.  In  us- 
ing the  latter  method,  it  may  be  difficult  to 
modulate  the  pitch  and  quality  of  the  words 
used.  An  unlucky  inflection  on  an  appar- 
ently insignificant  word  of  an  otherwise  per- 
fect soft  answer  may  entirely  destroy  its 
power  to  heal.  On  the  other  hand,  a  pensive 
melody  on  a  harp  or  guitar  would  not  be  sub- 
ject to  the  hazards  of  accent  which  thought 

74 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

must  undergo  in  passing  through  language 
to  the  mind  of  another. 

Passing  to  a  survey  of  the  mechanical  de- 
vices for  producing  audible  music,  one  finds 
man  giving  abundant  proof  that  he  has  in- 
herited from  mother  nature  her  gift  of 
working  miracles.  Witness  the  evolution  of 
the  modern  piano  from  the  simple  mono- 
chord,  not  to  mention  the  large  number  of 
stringed  instruments  and  the  more  vocifer- 
ous devices  used  by  brass  bands. 

Weighing  the  effects  produced  by  all  these 
instruments,  one  discovers  that  even  in  their 
minute  detail  man  has  duplicated  nature's 
methods;  for  precisely  what  she  does  with 
her  stops  and  pedals  he  does  with  his.  Be- 
tween the  simple  music  of  the  lute  and  that 
of  an  orchestra,  one  may  get  approximately 
the  same  range  of  variation  which  nature 
achieves  between  the  music  of  a  rill  and  her 
ocean  oratorios.  In  the  violin,  one  may 
claim  that  man  has  bettered  his  instruction, 
establishing  a  rivalry  which  might  well  make 
nature  look  to  her  laurels,  were  she  so  fool- 
ish as  to  care  for  such  baubles.  As  it  is,  all 

75 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

her  performances,  instead,  look  like  delicate 
hints  and  suggestions  to  lure  her  children  to 
work  miracles  with  her. 

"Dear  children,"  she  seems  to  say,  "hear 
me  play  a  wind  fugue  on  the  pine  trees  or 
through  the  reeds  and  grasses,  or  listen  to 
this  sylvan  chant  which  I  play  with  falling 
waters  and  rustling  leaves.  My  perform- 
ance is  nothing  beside  what  you  can  do  if 
you  will  only  work  out  the  various  sugges- 
tions which  I  give  you.  When  you  have 
elaborated  all  these  suggestions,  even  those 
which  I  make  so  softly  that  the  outer  ear 
misses  them  entirely,  you  may  inherit  a  king- 
dom of  heaven  of  your  own  making." 

Man,  listening  with  his  outer  and  his  in- 
ward ear,  year  after  year,  generation  after 
generation,  to  these  luring  hints  of  his  fair 
mother,  has  added  each  year  something  to 
the  melody  and  harmony  of  the  world;  nor 
is  he  more  troubled  than  nature  herself  be- 
cause his  miracles,  like  hers,  seldom  excite 
any  wonder  after  the  waning  of  a  single 
moon.  What  did  it  matter,  to  the  inspired 
man  who  Burbanked  a  tree  and  a  cat  into 

76 


FINDINGS  OF  THE  EAR 

a  violin,  that  his  divine  instrument  is  now  a 
matter  of  as  little  wonder  to  the  average  man 
as  primroses  to  the  Peter  Bells? 

Most  beautifully,  it  would  seem,  nature, 
along  with  the  other  hints  which  she  gives 
the  man  of  true  creative  intelligence,  gives 
always  a  clear  perception  of  the  fact  that  he 
is  only  a  transmitter  of  light  not  his  own. 
So,  in  direct  proportion  to  the  vital  value 
of  his  contribution,  he  must  give  to  the  world 
his  instrument  or  his  invention  with  a  selfless 
compulsion,  as  the  flower  gives  its  fragrance 
or  the  bird  its  song. 


77 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

"All  overwrought  with  branch-like  traceries 
In  which  there  is  religion  and  the  mute 
Persuasion  of  unkindled  melodies." 

—Shelley. 

\  NY  one  who  has  watched  the  tree  sur- 
-**•  geons  at  work  upon  their  arboreal  pa- 
tients in  our  parks,  must  have  been  struck 
with  the  similarity  of  the  methods  which  they 
use  and  those  known  to  thousands  of  hos- 
pitals all  over  the  land.  In  springtime, 
many  a  tree  on  Boston  Common  looks  as  if 
it  had  undergone  a  very  complex  lapa- 
rotomy,  and  one  almost  shivers  at  the 
thought  that  the  operation  was  performed 
without  the  use  of  anaesthetics. 

Sometimes  the  disembowelment  of  the  tree 
is  so  extensive  that  the  unsightly  remains 
hardly  seem  to  justify  the  time  and  skill 
spent  upon  them.  But  when  these  clever 

78 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

surgeons  have  used  their  disinfectants, 
cement,  and  bandages,  and  done  all  that  hu- 
man hands  can  do,  dear  old  nurse  nature 
takes  charge  of  the  patients,  dresses  their 
wounds,  and  gives  her  wonderful  cordials, 
manufactured  by  sun,  air,  earth,  and  cloud. 
So  faithfully  does  she  administer  her  hourly 
potions  from  the  vials  of  April,  May,  and 
June,  that  another  year  we  shall  scarcely 
recognize  the  maimed  trees,  with  their 
wounds  all  healed,  and  brave  in  the  green 
garments  of  summer. 

Bravo!  one  cries.  Even  a  wider  social 
union  than  Burns  craved  has  at  last  been 
recognized,  and  the  trees  also  have  been 
elected  to  the  Larger  Brotherhood  of  Man, 
and  granted  the  full  protective  rights  of 
citizens. 

But  fewer  years  ago  than  one  likes  to 
admit,  trees  were  commonly  regarded  as 
potential  lumber,  and  a  man  would  glance  at 
a  noble  grove  and,  seeing  neither  the  grove 
nor  its  trees,  ask,  "About  how  many  foot  of 
timber  will  that  cut?"  very  much  as  poverty- 
stricken  parents  sordidly  compute  the  value 

79 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

of  their  children  in  terms  of  the  deadly  pit- 
tances which  they  may  earn  in  some  mill  or 
factory. 

Now  the  world  is  beginning  to  awake  to 
the  crime  of  sacrificing  the  child  for  its  labor 
or  the  tree  for  its  timber,  when  each  has 
priceless  values  which  may  be  destroyed  by 
the  blind  and  greedy  god  of  commercialism. 

Like  man  himself,  trees  have  had  their 
dark  ages  and  years  of  oppression.  In  the 
gray  dawn  of  civilization,  when  man's  ex- 
pression of  himself  was  almost  wholly  physi- 
cal, the  tree  shared  his  savage  estate,  min- 
istering the  crude  necessities  which  were  de- 
manded of  it — food  from  fruit  and  nut  trees, 
fuel,  shelter,  and  material  for  bows  and 
arrows.  As  time  went  on,  each  generation 
demanded  more  of  the  tree,  until  so-called 
civilized  man  could  turn  in  no  direction  with- 
out seeing  in  his  belongings  some  bounty  of 
the  forest.  The  house  in  which  he  lived,  its 
floors  and  panels  of  beautifully  grained 
wood,  the  chairs  he  sat  on,  the  bed  he  slept 
in,  the  table  at  which  he  ate  or  upon  which 
he  wrote,  the  corks  of  his  bottles,  the  material 

80 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

part  of  his  books,  magazines,  newspapers, 
and  sometimes  his  stationery,  were  all  gifts 
of  the  trees. 

The  timber  of  his  boats,  ships,  and  of 
thousands  of  machines  and  hand-tools  for 
every  trade,  and  the  wooden  parts  of  pianos, 
organs,  violins,  and  other  musical  instru- 
ments, came  from  the  munificence  of  the 
forest.  Not  only  its  body  did  the  tree  sur- 
render to  man,  but  all  its  choice  ichors, 
known  to  the  commercial  world  as  turpen- 
tine, tar,  resin,  tung  oil,  varnish,  rubber,  cane 
and  maple  sugar,  and  medicinal  contribu- 
tions like  those  of  the  eucalyptus  tree.  Even 
with  the  end  of  man's  life,  the  services  of  the 
tree  did  not  end.  Protecting  him  still  with 
its  wooden  cloak,  and  thereby  dulling  the 
edge  of  the  mourner's  grief,  it  went  down 
with  his  body  into  the  earth  to  share  its  reso- 
lution into  dust. 

Yet  all  these  gifts  did  not  exhaust  the 
benefactions  of  the  forest.  To  the  materially 
minded  it  could  give  only  material  gifts,  yet 
it  stood  almost  wistfully  ready,  one  might 
fancy,  to  give,  O,  so  much  more  and  better 

81 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

things  to  those  who  would  only  ask  for 
them. 

At  last  they  came,  those  other  askers, 
those  who  began  to  see  the  whole  tree,  the 
whole  forest,  and  not  its  timber  alone. 
Among  them  were  the  poets  of  each  genera- 
tion, a  small  band  at  first,  but  continually 
increasing  till  the  eyes  of  many  were 
anointed  and  they  too  saw  that  the  tree  was 
made  not  for  a  servant  only,  but  as  a  com- 
panion and  friend  to  man,  destined  to  grow 
in  influence,  and  give  him  inspiration  and 
vision.  In  a  word,  men  began  to  worship  the 
soul  of  the  tree  as  well  as  its  body,  an  at- 
titude in  harmony  with  the  modern  watch- 
word of  marriage,  when  it  is  a  mating  above 
that  of  the  lower  animals. 

As  in  the  relationship  between  members 
of  the  human  race  too  it  was  discovered  that 
the  comradeship  and  influence  of  different 
trees  and  different  forests  were  infinitely 
varied.  No  two  trees  produce  the  same 
effect  upon  us.  Neither  do  any  two  forests 
weave  the  same  spell  over  us.  Yet  from 
every  tree  virtue  of  some  sort  goes  out  to  the 

82 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

man  or  woman  who  will  be  wise  enough  to 
sit  at  its  feet. 

While  all  trees  are  good  company,  some 
are  much  more  affable  than  others,  and  make 
their  appeal  to  more  of  our  senses.  To  the 
writer  the  maple,  especially  the  sugar  maple, 
has  always  seemed  one  of  the  most  motherly 
of  trees,  a  suggestion  borne  out  not  only  by 
its  full  matronly  figure  and  rich  autumnal 
tints,  but  also  by  the  maternal  largess  which 
allows  a  springtime  lechery  of  the  sweetness 
of  its  veins.  But  who  would  think  of  ask- 
ing for  a  pail  of  sap  from  a  Lombardy  pop- 
lar, in  her  close-fitting  hobble,  and  "touch 
me  not"  written  in  every  line  of  her  figure, 
whose  angular  uprightness  has,  neverthe- 
less, a  charm  all  its  own.  With  her  ever-sky- 
ward glance,  the  Lombardy  is  a  bosky  nun, 
or  a  personification  of  Wordsworth's  "Ode 
to  Duty."  Or  might  she  be  called  an  arbor- 
esque  Laertes,  pointing  others  the  steep  and 
thorny  path  to  heaven? 

Related  to  the  Lombardy,  as  a  gentle 
grandniece  might  be  to  a  more  austere  and 
rigidly  righteous  grandaunt,  the  white  birch 

83 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

radiates  an  atmosphere  of  innocence  which 
entitles  her  to  be  called  the  vestal  virgin  of 
the  forest.  Could  any  one  sit  at  ease  in  a 
company  of  white  birches  except  with  clean 
hands  and  a  clear  heart?  But  one  must  make 
the  most  of  this  specialized  virtue  of  the 
white  birch,  which  is  hers  at  the  expense  of 
much  emotional  range.  With  all  her  aura 
of  virtue  she  is  felt  to  be  a  young  thing,  and 
she  never  grows  to  be  very  old,  and  hence 
is  without  the  experience  which  begets  sturdy 
strength  of  character.  One  therefore  misses 
in  her  society  the  full  satisfaction  of  com- 
plete companionship  felt  in  the  presence  of 
an  old  oak  or  elm,  whose  doughty  fiber  was 
wrought  by  years,  perhaps  centuries,  of  re- 
sistance to  all  the  buffeting  winds  of  the 
world. 

Neither  is  there  any  call  of  deep  to  deep 
in  the  society  of  a  frivolous  poplar,  the  but- 
terfly belle  of  the  forest.  One  would  like 
her  for  a  partner  for  one  or  two  dances,  per- 
haps, but  not  for  a  life-mate;  and  one  would 
never  go  to  her  in  time  of  trouble,  as  to  an 
understanding  elm,  oak,  or  hemlock. 

84 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

Miss  Melancholy  Willow,  too,  one  would 
rather  call  upon  than  visit,  though  one  must 
admire  the  subtle  adaptation  of  her  flowing 
draperies  to  the  rhythmic  brooks  of  which 
she  is  the  tutelar  divinity,  as  her  roots  are  of 
their  banks. 

Again,  strangely  duplicating  the  excesses 
of  the  human  race,  some  trees,  like  the  horse- 
chestnut,  forbid  any  close  intimacy  because 
of  their  aromatic  intemperance.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  pine,  balsam,  spruce,  hem- 
lock, larch,  and  linden  observe  that  nice  dis- 
crimination between  the  little  more  and  the 
little  less,  and  fetter  us  by  one  more  sense 
than  can  the  tree  without  fragrance.  Other 
trees,  with  long  pendant  branches,  seem  to 
invite  us  to  come  and  be  cuddled,  while 
others,  like  the  prim  and  reserved  bald 
cypress,  as  plainly  hold  us  at  a  distance.  The 
proportion  of  such  trees,  however,  is  rela- 
tively small,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  mankind 
has  not  accepted  nature's  decree  on  this 
point;  but,  in  addition  to  trees  which  were 
born  prim,  others  have  had  primness  thrust 
upon  them  by  the  landscape  gardeners. 

85 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

From  all  such  manicured  and  strait- jack- 
eted specimens  the  true  nature-lover  turns 
away,  and  seeks  instead  the  "sweet  disorder" 
which,  in  a  tree's  attire,  as  in  a  woman's,  doth 
more  bewitch  than  when  "art  is  too  precise  in 
every  part,"  if  one  may  adapt  Herrick's 
lines  to  the  occasion.  A  tree  is  occasionally 
seen  which  has  been  trained  into  such  drab 
conventionality  that  a  man  might  feel 
obliged  to  wear  a  dress-suit  when  calling 
upon  her,  or  else  apologize  for  his  negligee. 
Left  to  themselves  and  their  own  tangled 
charms,  trees  riot  in  all  manner  of  fascinat- 
ing vagaries  and  wilful  whims,  even  carry- 
ing their  individuality  into  eccentricity,  as 
one  sees  it  in  the  rheumatic  contortions  of  the 
apple-tree,  the  serpentine  trunk  of  the  weep- 
ing sophora,  the  angelica-tree,  or  devil's 
walking-stick,  and  the  form  and  dropsical 
bark  of  the  elephant-wood,  with  the  bare 
twigs  of  its  branches  covered  with  a  multi- 
tude of  beautiful  red  blossoms.  Trees  with 
tumors  and  hunchbacks  may  also  be  seen  by 
anyone  who  will  follow  any  country  road 
long  enough.  On  the  same  highway  to  the 

86 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

Land  of  Heart's  Desire,  the  writer  has  seen 
very  exact  counterparts  of  Meg  Merrilies 
and  Caliban.  For  there  are  freaks  in  the 
woodland  world  as  there  are  among  beasts, 
birds,  and  fishes,  in  accordance  with  Nature's 
habit  of  illustrating  the  grotesque  in  every 
department  of  her  creation. 

In  a  word,  nearly  every  adjective  applica- 
ble to  the  human  body  would  fit  some  tree. 
Even  the  mental  and  moral  qualities  of  man- 
kind find  their  parallels  among  our  brothers 
of  the  forest.  Mr.  Winthrop  Packard  tells 
us  that  the  larch  is  a  mugwump,  its  cones 
voting  with  the  evergreens  and  its  leaves 
with  the  deciduous  trees.  Something  like  a 
gregarious  instinct  too  is  shown  by  trees  like 
the  beech,  while  others  hate  the  vulgar  crowd 
and  hold  themselves  aloof,  a  habit  which  is 
a  necessity  to  an  elm,  if  it  is  to  show  all  the 
compelling  lines  of  its  beauty. 

Trees,  then,  like  men,  were  not  created 
equal,  but,  like  the  stars,  differ  from  each 
other  in  glory.  They  have  their  distinctly 
aristocratic,  middle,  and  lower  classes.  In 
the  first  belong  the  aristocracy  of  birth — the 

87 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

"oldest  families,"  like  the  baobabs,  the  yews, 
oaks  (whom  Keats  called  "those  green-robed 
senators"),  limes,  cedars,  Oriental  planes, 
the  sequoias,  and  Indian  fig,  or  banyan, 
whose  bending  twigs  take  root  until  it  builds 
itself 

"Into  a  sylvan  temple  arched  aloof 
With  airy  aisles  and  living  colonnades." 

One  of  these  Indian  figs,  the  Cubeer  Burr, 
on  an  island  in  the  river  Nerbudda  will  ac- 
commodate in  its  shade  seven  thousand  peo- 
ple, and  feed  them  with  its  small  scarlet  figs, 
and  furnish  bird-music  from  a  thousand 
warblers  in  its  branches. 

Another  distinguished  representative  of 
the  first  families  is  the  maiden-hair  tree,  or 
Girikgo  biloba,  which  traces  its  ancestry  to 
the  primary  rocks,  and  boasts  of  ancestors 
which  played  highly  important  roles  in 
Mesozoic  times. 

Corresponding  also  to  our  aristocracy  of 
brains  is  the  sylvan  aristocracy  of  grains. 
For,  like  men,  trees  may  be  grouped  accord- 
ing to  outward  and  visible  signs  or  by  their 

88 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

inward  graces.  By  the  latter  classification 
high  rank  is  accorded  to  the  mahogany,  oak, 
ash,  Circassian  walnut,  ebony,  and  bird's-eye 
maple.  But  birches  belong  to  "the  upper 
middle  class,"  according  to  the  estimate  of 
Mr.  H.  E.  Parkhurst.  In  distinctly  "higher 
circles"  are  the  beeches,  which  proclaim  their 
rank  by  the  slender,  lance-like  shape  of  their 
leaf -buds,  the  simple,  classic  lines  of  their 
thin,  silky  leaves,  and  the  unadorned  beauty 
of  their  trunks,  limbs,  and  twigs  in  winter. 
There  are  trees  which  depend  upon  their 
leafage  for  most  of  their  charm,  as  Mark 
Twain  tells  us  some  women  depend  upon 
their  clothes  for  most  of  theirs.  But  the 
beech  can  be  naked  and  not  ashamed.  More- 
over, was  it  not  long  ago  admitted  to  pa- 
trician circles  by  the  Roman  orator,  Pas- 
sienus  Crispus,  who  poured  wine  on  its 
roots? 

If  any  tree  belongs  to  the  lower  middle 
class,  or  plebeian  rank,  it  should  be  the  dwarf 
juniper — and  yet,  much  might  be  said  in 
praise  of  that  ground-loving  tree.  Thus  are 
we  confronted  by  the  world-old  problem  of 

89 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

those  who  see  a  great  brotherhood,  but  can- 
not and  would  not  escape  the  difference 
'twixt  man  and  man.  Neither  would  one 
escape  the  difference  'twixt  tree  and  tree,  to 
find  the  boredom  of  monotony. 

Like  the  Alps,  the  trees  of  wonderful  girth 
and  stature  may  awe  us  with  their  sublimity, 
but  they  do  not  draw  us  with  love  as  may 
some  lesser  tree.  We  need  both  emotions, 
though  not  for  the  same  length  of  time.  The 
trees  we  love  are  those  that  will  come  and 
live  with  us,  stretch  their  arms  protectingly 
over  our  homes,  and  silently  weave  them- 
selves into  the  tenderest  associations  of  our 
lives.  A  home  without  trees  around  it  is 
like  a  literature  without  poetry  in  it.  Even 
a  very  humble  house  nestled  among  trees 
warms  the  cockles  of  the  heart  as  a  treeless 
mansion  cannot.  The  old  roof -tree  becomes 
a  member  of  the  family  and,  like  the  rest 
of  the  family,  is  carefully  cherished  and 
watched  over  whenever  its  health  is  men- 
aced by  storms,  moths,  beetles,  or  any  of  the 
ills  which  trees  are  heir  to. 

How  deeply  such  trees  may  strike  their 

90 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

roots  into  the  human  heart  is  known  only 
to  those  who  have  lived  on  intimate  terms 
with  some  of  their  sylvan  brothers  from 
childhood.  Nor  can  one  measure  the  fine 
spiritual  losses  of  the  man  or  woman  who 
has  missed  the  individual  tuition  of  single 
trees  or  the  higher  education  of  a  forest. 
For  every  tree,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
is  begirt  with  mystery,  and  lures  the  mind 
beyond  the  close-cropped  circle  in  which  it 
is  too  often  tethered  by  the  petty  interests 
of  life.  This  influence  was  felt  centuries 
ago  in  the  East,  and  finds  quaint  expression 
in  the  Varaka  Purana,  which  promises 
heavenly  bliss  to  the  planter  of  certain  trees. 
"He  never  goes  to  hell,"  asserts  the  Purana, 
"who  plants  an  asyatha,  or  a  pichumarda,  or 
a  banian,  or  ten  jessamines,  or  two  pome- 
granates, or  a  pachamra,  or  five  mangoes." 

Even  the  superstitions  of  India  show  that 
a  tree  in  that  country  is  regarded  as  some- 
thing more  than  its  wood-fibered  body.  Ac- 
cording to  one  tradition,  the  holes  in  trees 
are  the  doors  through  which  the  special 
spirits  of  those  trees  pass,  a  fancy  which  finds 

91 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

an  interesting  duplicate  in  the  German  be- 
lief that  elves  pass  through  the  holes  of  trees, 
and  that  certain  ailments,  especially  of  hand 
and  foot,  may  be  cured  by  contact  with  these 
holes.  Legends  like  these,  and  still  more  all 
the  tree-begotten  inspirations  of  poetry, 
make  it  clear  that  the  myth-makers  and 
poets  need  trees  and  forests  as  a  nesting- 
place  for  their  fancies  quite  as  much  as  the 
birds  and  squirrels  need  them  for  their  own 
dainty  dwellings. 

Yet  with  all  the  rich  dream-stuff  which 
may  be  harvested  from  the  forest  or  any 
single  tree  of  it,  comparatively  little  has  been 
reaped  for  literature  thus  far,  and  most  of 
that  little  has  been  garnered  by  the  poets  of 
America.  This  statement  is  made  in  serene 
certainty  of  the  dissent  of  those  who  have 
made  no  comparative  study  of  the  subject 
and  of  those  who  cannot  detect  literary  merit 
unless  it  wears  a  foreign  label.  The  writer, 
however,  is  willing  to  be  convinced  of  error 
if  any  one  can  match,  by  a  foreign  author 
on  the  same  theme,  Bryant's  "Forest 
Hymn,"  Emerson's  "Wood  Notes,"  as  well 

92 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

as  many  of  his  shorter  poems  on  the  same 
subject,  Lowell's  "Under  the  Willows,"  and 
many  of  the  tree-inspired  lines  of  Larder's 
"Sunrise"  and  the  "Marshes  of  Glynn." 

As  might  be  expected,  many  of  Whittier's 
lines  also  beat  with  a  pulse  strongly  ac- 
celerated by  the  forest: 

"Keep  who  will  the  city's  alleys, 

Take  the  smooth-shorn  plain — 
Give  to  us  the  cedar  valleys, 

Rocks  and  hills  of  Maine! 
In  our  Northland  wild  and  woody, 

Let  us  still  have  part: 
Rugged  nurse  and  mother  sturdy, 

Hold  us  to  thy  heart! 

"Where  are  mossy  carpets  better 

Than  the  Persian  weaves, 
And  than  Eastern  perfumes  sweeter 

Seem  the  fading  leaves; 
And  a  music  wild  and  solemn, 

From  the  pine-tree's  height, 
Rolls  its  vast  and  sea-like  volume 

On  the  wind  of  night." 

Illustrating  another  phase  of  the  give- 
and-take  which  attends  a  close  rapport  be- 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

tween   man    and   his    sylvan   brothers    are 
Lowell's  lines  from  "Under  the  Willows": 

"Myself  was  lost, 

Gone  from  me  like  an  ache,  and  what  remained 
Became  a  part  of  the  universal  joy. 
My  soul  went  forth,  and,  mingling  with  the  tree, 
Danced  in  the  leaves." 

Undoubtedly,  Wordsworth  or  Shelley 
might  have  written  a  better  "Forest  Hymn" 
than  Bryant's,  had  they  been  as  strongly 
moved  by  the  forest  as  was  the  American 
poet.  But  the  point  here  made  is  simply 
that  no  forest  or  tree  apparently  so  moved 
them,  though  the  ardent  tree-lover  is  moved 
by  everything  about  a  tree.  Like  an  en- 
amored youth  who  finds  trivial  no  fact  con- 
nected with  his  sweetheart,  the  tree-lover  is 
responsive  to  every  trait,  feature,  and  habit 
of  his  sylvan  divinities.  The  masterful  grip 
of  their  roots  in  the  soil;  their  smooth,  rough, 
or  deep-fissured  bark;  the  wonderful  grains 
of  their  wood;  their  slight  or  stately  figures; 
the  strange  ichors  in  their  veins;  the  lavish 
bounty  of  those  that  give  nuts  and  fruit ;  the 

94 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

cut  and  color  of  their  leaves,  and  their  beau- 
tiful tracery  against  the  dome  of  blue;  their 
soothing  carpet  of  shade  on  the  grass,  or  the 
swaying  shadow  on  a  curtain,  made  by  a 
leafy  branch  at  the  will  of  the  wind — all 
these  and  scores  of  other  charms  fugitive  and 
perennial  spell  the  infinite  variety  by  which 
a  tree  holds  us  in  thrall. 

But  most  of  all,  the  tree-lover  delights  in 
the  empire  of  wildness  which  it  is  the  prov- 
ince of  the  kings  of  the  forest  to  maintain 
against  all  the  heedless  encroachments  of 
civilization.  How  invaluable  this  wildness 
is  to  the  world  is  little  understood  by  the 
Philistine,  who,  if  he  could,  would  barber 
all  the  forests  of  their  captivating  individu- 
ality, and  leave  dear  old  nature  never  so 
much  as  a  fairy  ring  where  she  might  let 
down  her  hair,  and  go  barefooted. 

In  a  city  we  may  tolerate  a  park  ready  for 
callers,  with  all  its  trees  shampooed  and  in 
full  coiffure,  and  its  grass  looking  as  if  the 
last  finishing  touch  had  been  given  with  a 
fine-toothed  comb.  But  never  a  light-footed 
fairy  or  sylvan  god  shall  we  find  in  such  a 

95 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

place,  nor  any  muse  whose  dictation  will  not 
sound  like  a  phonograph.  The  paradox  of 
the  situation  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  more 
civilized  man  becomes,  the  more  he  needs  and 
craves  a  great  background  of  forest  wildness, 
to  which  he  may  return  like  a  contrite 
prodigal  from  the  husks  of  an  artificial  life. 

Many  of  us  know  that  indefinable  and  ir- 
remediable ennui  which  is  felt  in  the  society 
of  a  man  or  woman  whose  mind  is  intellectu- 
ally "level  and  free  from  stones,  half  mow- 
ing and  half  tillage,"  and  the  latter  some- 
times intensive — a  mind  with  no  wild  wood- 
lands or  rocky  pastures,  where  one  might 
stumble  on  a  bubbling  spring  of  fancy  or  a 
briar-rose  of  sentiment.  Precisely  the  same 
kind  of  ennui,  only  on  a  cosmic  scale,  we  shall 
feel  if  our  wild  woods,  and  the  uneven  coun- 
try which  is  their  vestibule,  are  little  by  little 
abolished. 

When  men  have  recognized  that  the  forest 
is  a  great  standing  army,  divinely  appointed 
to  protect  the  human  race  not  only  from 
drought,  flood,  and  famine,  but  from  their 
counterparts  in  the  intellectual  and  spirit- 

96 


OUR  BROTHERS,  THE  TREES 

ual  world,  perhaps  some  of  the  time  and 
money  now  spent  on  battleships  and  destruc- 
tive armies  will  be  diverted  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  our  beautiful  and  peaceful  de- 
fenders, the  trees. 

As  a  small  thankoffering  to  many  trees  in 
whose  companionship  the  writer  has  felt  an 
unalloyed  joy  for  which  the  rushing  world 
knows  no  formula,  the  following  poem  to  a 
king  of  the  forest  is  gratefully  dedicated: 

To  A  SEQUOIA 

Imperial  brother  of  the  ages  gray, 
By  right  divine  enthroned,  we  hail  thee  king. 
For  such  compelling  majesty  is  thine 
That  wanton-handed  Time  forbears  to  mar 
Thy  godlike  form,  more  fain  to  bid  the  years 
Augment  the  power  that  scepters  thee  with  awe. 
So  wait  the  vassal  centuries  on  thee: 
With  golden  sunbeams  weaving  earth  and  air, 
With  dew  and  raindrops  weaving  light,  till  thou 
Art  clad  in  glory's  wonder-garments  broad — 
Wrought  out  upon  the  silent  looms  of  God. 

And  still  for  thee  the  unworn  shuttles  move, 
That  plied  while  ancient  empires  rose  and  fell, 
And  all  the  shifting  pageantry  of  time 
Dissolved  in  mist  upon  oblivion's  shore. 
97 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Nor  kingly  power  alone  thy  vested  right; 
High  priest  thou  art  of  temples  rarer  far 
Than  all  the  roof-bound  chiselings  of  man, 
And  round  thy  green-draped  altars  breezes  swing 
A  hundred  flowery  censers  sweet:  the  rose, 
Campanula,  and  violet  and  white, 
White  lilies  set  in  mossy  banks  of  green. 
Gay  surpliced  birds  thy  choristers  that  sing 
To  far-off  waterfalls  and  mountain  streams, 
Intoning  sylvan  melodies  divine. 

Sublime  ambassador  from  heavenly  courts, 
Though  thine  the  speech  transcending  mortal  ear, 
With  mystic  sense  endow  our  holden  eyes 
That  we  with  vision  purified  may  see 
The  living  God  who  veils  himself  in  thee. 


98 


VI 
PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

\\THAT  the  "keeping-room"  is  to  the 
*  *  rest  of  the  house,  the  pasture  is  to  the 
rest  of  the  farm.  Its  very  atmosphere  sug- 
gests a  friendly  largess  and  hospitality,  as 
any  horse,  cow,  or  sheep  would  testify  could 
any  of  them  be  called  on  the  witness  stand. 
Over  all  the  cultivated  fields  "Mustn't 
touch"  is  written  for  the  stock  as  plainly  as 
it  is  for  the  children  in  the  rooms  which  hold 
their  mothers'  choicest  bric-a-brac.  But  in 
a  pasture  you  need  not  keep  off  the  grass; 
instead,  you  may  sit  on  it,  lie  on  it,  or  eat 
it — as  may  be  your  need  or  habit.  The 
wheat-field  may  receive  formal  standing 
calls,  but  it  offers  you  no  seat,  and  is  too 
busy  to  entertain  callers  until  the  harvesting 
season  is  over,  and  then  one  finds  it  too  worn 
out  to  be  very  entertaining.  Not  so  the 
genial,  democratic  pasture,  which  is  at  home 

99 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

to  any  living  creature  at  any  time,  come  he 
to  feed  his  flocks  or  his  dreams. 

A  cultivated  field  of  oats  or  barley  has  a 
charm  all  its  own,  enhanced  when  the  wind 
passes  over  it  and  ripples  it  into  poetry.  As 
a  field  of  oats  or  barley  it  may  be  well-nigh 
faultless,  yet  its  perfection  after  a  time 
nudges  us  with  that  old  maxim,  "For  every- 
thing you  gain  you  lose  something,"  and 
with  that  key-word  comes  the  remembrance 
of  a  pine-bordered  pasture  on  the  hillside 
above  the  cultivated  field,  a  pasture  whose 
wide  outlook,  and  rugged  profile  of  rocks 
and  bowlders,  wild  berries  and  ferns  make  it 
far  richer  in  the  diversity  of  its  suggestion 
than  any  cultivated  field. 

The  shrewd  business  man  may  be  lured 
by  advertisements  of  "level  fields  free  from 
rocks  and  stones,"  but  the  eye  of  the  dreamer 
is  caught  and  held  by  a  minor  clause  which 
mentions  a  "spring-watered"  or  "brook- 
watered  pasture  with  woodland  adjoining." 
For  him  the  very  word  "pasture"  is  rich  in 
gentle  and  poetic  associations,  wholly  un- 
stirred by  other  words  which  apply  to  any 
100 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

other  kind  of  land.  Without  the  background 
of  the  pasture  where  David  fed  his  flocks, 
should  we  ever  have  had  the  twenty-third 
psalm,  or  the  pastoral  notes  that  echo  so 
tenderly  through  many  another?  And  what 
need  a  pasture  mind  if  a  field  below  it  raise 
a  thousand  barrels  of  oats  or  corn,  when  on 
the  pasture's  hillside  a  shepherd-king  har- 
vested an  immortal  psalm  which  has  re- 
freshed the  spiritually  thirsty  for  nearly 
three  thousand  years? 

All  the  other  cleared  land  of  a  farm  is  pre- 
occupied with  industries,  like  plowing,  har- 
rowing, sowing,  weeding,  and  harvesting. 
But  a  pasture  offers  leisure  to  meditate  and 
entertain  visions.  This  may  have  been  one  of 
the  reasons  why  the  wonderful  tale  of  the 
Nativity  was  told  to  shepherds,  who  were 
apparently  deemed  prepared  to  hear  so 
great  tidings.  One  can  hardly  fancy  an 
angel  making  such  an  announcement  to  a 
man  whose  business  was  so  engrossing  that 
his  mind  held  no  fair  pasture  lands,  where 
the  flocks  of  fancy  and  imagination  might 

wander  and  graze. 

101 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Something  in  the  very  furnishings  of  a 
pasture  gives  the  friendly  invitation  to  tarry 
awhile  and  muse  and  wonder.  In  other 
places,  winding  roads  may  lure  you  on  and 
on  with  the  promise  of  what  lies  beyond  their 
next  curves.  But  a  pasture  says  gently  but 
plainly,  "Sit  awhile,"  offering  you  your 
choice  of  hundreds  of  rare  seats,  like  pul- 
pited  bowlders,  lichen-covered  rocks,  low 
stone  walls,  moss-covered  logs  and  stumps, 
or  rustic  divans  made  by  wild  apple-trees, 
which  coquettishly  thrust  out  their  arms  at 
right  angles  to  their  trunks.  Lacking  these, 
there  is  always  the  earth,  the  very  lap  of 
nature,  which  is  sure  to  hold  you. 

In  a  word,  a  pasture,  like  June,  is  "full  of 
invitations  sweet,"  and  finely  varied  to  meet 
your  quest.  If  you  are  hungry,  a  pasture 
may  offer  you  wild  strawberries,  raspberries, 
blueberries,  blackberries,  or  huckleberries, 
according  to  the  season.  Some  even  have 
grumpy  but  kindly  old  apple-trees  hidden 
away  in  odd  corners  of  their  storerooms  to 
tempt  one  to  dare  all  that  may  become  a  boy. 
Chestnuts,  butternuts,  beechnuts,  and  hazel- 

102 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

nuts  are  also  among  the  refreshments  fur- 
nished by  many  a  resourceful  pasture.  If 
you  are  thirsty,  a  bubbling  spring  or  brook 
will  not  only  slake  your  thirst,  but  revive  a 
score  of  fragrant  memories,  long  parched 
perhaps  by  the  drought  of  years. 

Nor  does  the  hospitality  of  a  pasture  cease 
with  its  offerings  of  creature  comforts.  Most 
pastures,  being  set  on  a  hill,  command  a  finer 
view  than  any  other  part  of  a  farm.  From 
one  particularly  versatile  pasture  known  to 
the  writer  one  gets  a  view  of  a  continuous 
line  of  mountain  peaks  and  slopes  on  nearly 
three  fourths  of  the  horizon.  Over  these, 
from  the  reel  of  nights  and  days,  pass  the 
wonderful  moving  pictures  of  cloudland  and 
starland,  with  f oreglow  and  afterglow,  which 
weave,  over  the  east  and  west,  royal  crim- 
son, rose,  and  golden  draperies,  well  fit  to  be 
the  very  curtains  of  heaven.  All  these  chang- 
ing glories  of  dawn  and  sunset,  and  the  ever- 
shifting  mountain  shadows,  purple,  blue,  and 
gray,  go  with  the  freedom  of  the  pasture. 
Then,  knowing  it  is  not  good  for  man  to 
keep  his  face  continually  skyward,  nature 

103 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

turns  downs  her  celestial  lights  and  makes 
a  gray  day,  that  man  may  look  downward, 
where  the  little  earth-lights  shine.  And  of 
these,  where  may  one  find  more  in  their  wild 
native  grace  than  in  a  pasture,  which  matches 
its  democratic  hospitality  to  man  and  beast 
in  its  catholic  tolerance  of  all  manner  of 
lowly  blossoms,  plebeian  weeds,  and  down- 
trodden shrubs,  which  are  exiled  from  the 
rest  of  the  farm  because  they  "spoil  the 
grass." 

The  outcast  thistle,  the  slighted  steeple- 
bush,  milkweed,  mouse-ear,  bracken,  and 
mullein-stalk  find  the  pasture  a  veritable 
Home  for  the  Friendless  of  plantdom,  and 
in  its  large  and  charitable  air  they  flourish 
and  weave  for  themselves  such  gracious  gar- 
ments of  beauty  that  they  seem  no  longer 
despised  weeds,  but  as  worthy  of  our  wonder 
and  admiration  as  the  most  pampered  flower 
in  our  gardens.  Where  else  so  abundantly 
as  in  an  equal-suffrage  pasture  does  a  thistle 
show  us  the  richest  hues  of  its  royal  purple, 
and  the  silver-white  down  of  its  winged 
seeds?  And  where  so  advantageously  as  on 

104 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

some  hill-slope  of  such  a  kindly  pasture  may 
the  mullein  set  hundreds  of  its  blossom-lit 
candlesticks  to  piece  out  the  waning  light  of 
summer? 

Here  too  the  sweetbrier  rose,  queen  of 
all  wildings,  holds  her  rustic  court,  for  her 
sake  alone  making  any  pasture  worthy  of 
a  pilgrimage  to  it.  A  sweetbrier  may  now 
and  then  salute  you  from  a  roadside,  but 
how  can  one  have  any  privacy  with  her 
along  the  highway,  with  passers-by  likely 
to  interrupt  the  rarest  secrets  she  may  have 
for  one's  ear?  No,  indeed,  it  is  only  in  a 
pasture  that  you  may  hold  long  and  inti- 
mate communings  with  this  shy  divinity  of 
flowerdom. 

Such  a  privilege  was  once  mine  for  weeks 
in  New  Hampshire  country,  where  grew 
four  most  captivating  sweetbrier  bushes, 
whose  dainty  pale  blossoms  were  so  thor- 
oughly protected  by  long  stalwart  thorns 
that  to  "love  the  wood-rose  and  leave  it  on 
its  stalk"  was  less  a  virtue  than  the  Falstaf- 
fian  part  of  valor.  In  spite  of  its  body- 
guard, however,  the  incense  of  the  sweetbrier 

105 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

has  greater  power  to  attract  than  its  thorns 
have  to  repel.  One  feels  irresistibly  drawn 
to  get  as  near  as  possible  to  the  very  soul  of 
a  blossom  whose  breath  is  one  of  the  most 
delicately  sweet  odors  in  all  the  world  of 
petals. 

As  we  seem  to  get  closer  to  our  friends  by 
a  hand-clasp,  so  we  instinctively  try  to  get 
nearer  a  fragrant  blossom  by  holding  it  to 
our  nostrils,  or  by  pressing  its  leaves.  To 
please  a  captious  poet,  we  may  be  willing  to 
leave  all  but  one  of  the  blossoms  on  its  stalk; 
for,  unlike  many  other  plants  with  fragrant 
blossoms,  the  sweetbrier  does  not  specialize 
its  fragrance  in  its  petals,  but  is  sweet 
through  and  through,  branch,  leaf,  and 
flower,  so  that  one  can  get  almost  the  same 
redolence  by  pressing  the  leaves  of  the  sweet- 
brier  as  that  exhaled  by  her  petals.  With 
this  redolence,  which  is  part  of  the  evolved 
vocabulary  of  floral  Esperanto,  the  blossoms 
manage  to  say  as  many  different  things  and 
in  as  many  different  ways  as  the  poets,  from 
one-octave  to  eight-octave  range.  To  learn 
Floralese  one  must  adopt  the  same  methods 

106 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

used  in  acquiring  any  other  language, 
namely,  daily  association  with  those  who 
speak  it.  Naturally,  the  closer  and  longer  the 
association,  the  more  perfect  the  mastery  of 
the  language.  But  a  sweetbrier  is  such  an 
inspired  tutor  that  in  a  few  weeks  one  may 
learn  more  from  her  than  in  months  under 
the  tuition  of  a  stolid  instructor  like  the  rub- 
ber-plant. Like  all  great  teachers,  this 
Hypatia  of  the  pasture  gives  instruction  by 
giving  herself,  by  the  charm  which  is  the 
radio-activity  of  her  personality,  chemically 
speaking. 

After  enough  causeries  with  her  to  catch 
her  code,  one  receives  the  suggestion  that, 
if  absolute  purity,  innocence,  and  gentleness 
could  express  themselves  in  redolent  terms, 
their  fragrance  would  be  that  of  the  sweet- 
brier.  Other  roses  there  are  whose  fragrance, 
texture,  and  multi-petaled  beauty  can  "tease 
us  out  of  thought;"  but,  compared  with 
the  exquisite  simplicity  and  fragrance  of  the 
sweetbrier,  their  perfume  hints  of  the  so- 
phistications of  a  hothouse. 

Deep-tinted,  matronly  roses  one  fancies 

107 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

may  thrive  on  plain  rain-water  and  the  full- 
est beams  of  the  sun.  But  the  petals  of  the 
pale  sweetbrier,  so  ethereal  in  tint,  texture, 
and  fragrance,  give  one  the  impression  that 
they  have  drunken  only  of  the  pure  distilla- 
tion of  dewdrops,  and  taken  their  color  from 
the  first  damask  glow  of  the  dawn.  This 
extremely  virginal  effect  in  the  aura  of  the 
sweetbrier  is  heightened  by  her  strong  de- 
fensive armor  of  thorns.  Touch  me  not  or 
"Ich  stecke  dich,"  is  as  plainly  the  motto  of 
her  house  as  though  written  in  all  the  annals 
of  heraldry.  Of  all  flowers,  she  seems  the 
most  "unspotted  from  the  world/'  and  we 
would  always  keep  her  so.  To  that  end  may 
all  friendly  pastures  grant  her  on  their  hills 
entailed  rights  while  grass  shall  grow  and 
water  run. 

Having  done  obeisance,  as  is  fitting,  to 
the  queen  of  the  pasture,  one  may  consider 
other  humble-minded  plants  that  find  the 
pasture  a  Cradle  of  Liberty  Chiefest  of 
these  is  the  sweet-fern,  which  deserves  all  the 
consolation  it  may  draw  from  the  definition 
of  a  weed,  as  "a  plant  whose  virtues  have  not 

108 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

been  discovered."  Although  some  of  its  vir- 
tues have  been  discovered,  few  farmers  can 
remember  them,  though  they  can  be  eloquent 
concerning  its  vices.  Like  a  prophet  in  his 
own  country,  the  sweet-fern  is  most  appre- 
ciated by  those  who  in  their  childhood  have 
not  been  familiar  with  it.  The  camper 
knows  that  it  is  good  for  bedding  and  pil- 
lows, and  the  artist  knows  that  its  rich  and 
varied  autumnal  coloring  of  old  rose,  buff, 
bronze,  and  wine  makes  one  feel  like  drink- 
ing to  it  with  one's  eyes,  while  the  psycholo- 
gist discovers  that  its  delightfully  spicy  odor 
furnishes  an  unduplicated  key  to  enchanted 
doors  of  mystery. 

The  Dicksonia,  or  hay-scented  fern,  is  an- 
other of  the  "best  families"  having  one  of  its 
permanent  residences  in  the  pasture.  Such 
a  gracious,  friendly  little  fern  it  is,  snuggling 
up  to  any  old  Caliban  of  a  bowlder,  or  un- 
couth stone  wall,  as  if  it  said,  "I  don't  mind 
your  hard,  bony  joints;  I  will  cover  some  of 
them  with  my  pale  green  draperies" — which 
it  does,  running  up  hill  and  down  with  the 
stone  wall  and  softening  its  rugged  lines,  as 

109 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

a  smile  may  soften  the  asperity  of  an  un- 
pleasant truth. 

Not  only  are  there  in  almost  every  pas- 
ture hundreds  of  lowly  plants  and  shrubs 
whose  acquaintance  is  well  worth  making, 
but  as  many  fascinating  insects,  worms,  ants, 
beetles,  moths,  and  butterflies,  which  share 
the  honors  of  host  and  hostess  to  guests  of 
the  pasture.  Squirrels,  chipmunks,  wood- 
chucks  (a  name  which  is  a  pasture  title-claim 
in  itself),  hedgehogs,  "woodpussies,"  eu- 
phemistically speaking,  and  sometimes  cows 
are  also  on  the  entertainment  committee  of 
the  pasture,  and  each  one  has  much  strange 
and  interesting  lore  to  impart  to  those  who 
have  ears  to  hear. 

The  city  man  who  thinks  of  a  cow  solely 
as  a  sedate  four-cornered  animal  that  gives 
milk  will  discover,  on  prolonged  acquaint- 
ance, that  a  cow,  while  not  a  sprightly  or 
vivacious  quadruped  like  the  squirrel,  or  tem- 
peramental like  a  cat,  has  other  than  copy- 
book virtues  well  worth  the  study  of  the 
most  intelligent  biped.  On  her  native  heath, 

the  pasture,  one  sees  how  nobly  simple,  calm, 

no 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

and  unaffected  a  cow  can  be  and  withal  so 
sturdily  independent  in  all  her  acts.  Once 
in  a  great  many  moons  men  may  remember 
"nothing  is  more  vulgar  than  haste";  but 
the  cow  daily  lives  up  to  that  maxim,  and, 
never  J  aving  heard  of  Fletcher  or  Gladstone, 
she  yet  surpasses  both  in  the  prolonged  and 
unwearied  rhythm  of  her  jaws. 

One  also  learns  in  a  pasture  that  cows 
are  as  different  from  each  other  in  their 
moods  and  manners  as  are  cats  and  dogs. 
While  cows,  as  a  rule,  cannot  be  said  to  be 
highly  imaginative,  they  are  by  no  means 
unresponsive  to  the  lure  of  the  difficult  and 
forbidden.  While  camping  in  the  New 
Hampshire  pasture  I  have  mentioned,  I  once 
saw  a  cow,  of  Evelike  disposition,  trying  to 
reach  an  apple  on  a  high  bough  over  her 
head.  There  were  several  other  apple-trees 
near,  whose  fruit  was  easily  within  her  reach. 
But  she  would  none  of  them.  The  difficult 
was  the  beautiful  to  her,  and  for  several 
minutes  she  stretched  her  neck  upward  to 
its  utmost  accordion-capacity,  at  the  same 

time  curling  out  her  tongue  to  bridge  the 
ill 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

distance  between  her  and  the  elusive  apple, 
which  still  escaped  her  by  a  paltry  fraction 
of  an  inch.  It  was  a  hard,  green  apple,  that 
might  have  set  on  edge  the  teeth  of  the  cow's 
descendants,  but  she  knew  not  how  kind  was 
Fate  in  her  denial,  and  those  of  us  who 
watched  her  reflected  that,  had  only  the  for- 
bidden fruit  of  Eden  grown  on  a  bough  as 
far  beyond  the  reach  of  Eve  as  was  this  apple 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  cow,  we  might  still 
— but  no ;  Eve  would  have  coaxed  Adam  to 
climb  the  tree! 

Returning,  however,  to  our  cow,  tempo- 
rarily sidetracked  by  Eve,  if  one  must  speak 
all  and  truly — a  habit  always  attended  by 
risks — one  learns  by  living  in  a  pasture  that 
the  manners  of  a  cow  sometimes  leave  much 
to  be  desired.  That  delicate  perception  and 
consideration  for  the  feelings  of  others  which 
lie  at  the  root  of  all  good  manners  are  wholly 
lacking  in  a  cow. 

Nevertheless,  although  this  fact  may  have 
most  discomforting  illustrations,  one  cannot 
cherish  unkindly  feelings  toward  the  cow, 

since  her  lack  of  tact  grows  out  of  her  lack 

112 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

of  imagination.  Neither  can  one  blame  her 
for  her  innocent  ignorance  of  property 
rights.  When  she  devours  a  panful  of 
apples  carelessly  placed  on  an  unguarded 
camp-table,  or  eats  a  choice  head  of  lettuce 
in  a  pail  of  water  near  by,  or  swallows,  can- 
nibalistically,  a  pound  of  her  own  best  brand 
of  Jersey  butter,  one  must  remember  that 
from  the  cow's  point  of  view  all  these  items 
on  her  bill  of  fare  seem  as  naturally  and 
pleasantly  hers  as  the  unforbidden  grass 
under  her  feet. 

Even  when  she  benevolently  assimilates 
half  a  cake  of  washing-soap,  leaving  on  the 
other  half  of  the  cake  the  curved  and  au- 
thentic signature  of  her  jaws,  one's  regret 
is  tempered  by  the  fancy  that  she  may  be 
unconsciously  responding  to  modern  anti- 
septic standards  of  living. 

It  would  be  ungracious,  however,  to  close 
this  bovine  record  by  the  mention  of  these 
less  endearing  idiosyncrasies  of  a  cow,  when 
the  permanent  recollection  of  her  and  her 
mates  is  mellowed  and  idealized  by  distance. 
Forgetting  all  her  little  lapses,  growing  out 

113 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

of  inability  to  define  the  limitation  of  her 
rights,  one  remembers  her  as  the  artists  love 
to  paint  her,  lying  easefully  under  the  trees, 
unvexed  by  the  turmoil  of  the  world,  and 
giving  to  the  landscape  a  vital  touch  which 
makes  a  connecting  link  between  it  and  man. 

Finally,  no  inventory  of  the  assets  of  a 
pasture  would  be  complete  without  some 
mention  of  the  glamour  of  its  "woodland  ad- 
joining" and  the  bo-peeping  birds,  blossoms, 
and  ferns  that  live  in  it.  From  the  adjoining 
woodland  come  to  the  ears  of  the  cosmo- 
politan house-party  in  the  pasture  the  rarer 
songs  of  rarer  birds  which  seldom  leave  their 
wooded  privacies.  When  the  hermit  thrush, 
the  wood  thrush,  and  the  veery  give  their 
choicest  scores,  morning,  noon,  and  evening, 
they  make  any  seat  in  a  near-by  pasture  more 
valuable  than  a  season  symphony  ticket. 

One  might  go  on  writing  volumes  on  the 
entertainment  offered  by  the  natural  resi- 
dents of  a  pasture  and  the  fugitive  winged 
minstrels  which  flit  through  and  around  it. 
But  enough,  perhaps,  has  been  said  to  show 
that  a  pasture,  often  scorned  by  a  farmer  as 

114 


PASTURES  FAIR  AND  LARGE 

the  least  of  Bis  possessions,  may  be  not  only 
a  veritable  vineyard  of  visions,  but  a  most 
livable,  lovable  spot,  especially  when  shared 
with  livable,  lovable  camp-comrades,  with 
hearts  for  any  fate. 

In  these  days,  when  the  noisy  and  noisome 
conquests  of  steam,  electricity,  and  gasolene 
threaten  to  blot  out  so  many  of  the  still  green 
places  of  the  world,  like  a  last  hope  seems 
a  pasture,  with  its  unspoiled  margin  of  quiet 
wildness.  Many  moods  and  moments  we 
have  when  we  need  the  greater  voices  of 
nature,  vocal  in  towering  mountains,  sea  and 
cataract,  which  call  and  respond  to  the  deep- 
est deeps  within  us;  and  these  by  their  own 
compelling  majesty  have  partially  restrained 
the  vandal  hand  of  man.  But  we  also  need, 
for  the  more  frequent  and  homely  cravings 
of  mind  and  heart,  those  humbler  delectable 
regions  of  nature  which  are  less  stimulating 
in  their  demand.  Then  it  is  that  one  may 
find  in  a  modest,  friendly  pasture  many  a 
well-spring  of  meditation  and  peace. 

Laid  out  by  its  olden  orthodox  survey, 
heaven  itself  would  be  but  a  glittering  ex- 

115 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

position  of  glory,  if  one  could  not  be  assured 
that  it  held  somewhere  a  vast  background 
of  pasture-land,  where  one  might  keep  in 
immortal  fragrance  the  tender  memories  of 
earth. 


lie 


VII 

NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR 
POLKA  DOTS 

TT  would  be  interesting  to  know  for  what 
*  particular  one  of  her  creations  nature  first 
designed  the  polka  dot.  However  that  may 
be,  the  result  was  evidently  pronounced 
good,  for  this  dot  appears  on  nearly  every- 
thing from  hard,  mottled  stones  and  the  bark 
of  trees  to  the  daintiest  of  feathers  and  flow- 
ers. 

One  would  like  to  believe  that  the  beauty 
of  the  polka  dot,  in  all  its  glorified  forms 
and  tints,  was  to  nature  an  end  in  itself. 
Perhaps  it  was.  But  one  must  also  acknowl- 
edge the  findings  of  the  naturalists,  who  have 
studied  nature's  cipher  so  long  that  they 
know  a  good  deal  of  her  code  and  can  tell 
with  considerable  certainty  just  why  she  dots 
an  eye  in  one  case  and  does  not  in  another. 
Be  it  granted,  then,  at  the  outset,  that  the 

117 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

polka  dot  plays  a  large  part  in  the  scheme  of 
coloration  which  protects  the  wearer,  allures 
its  mate,  warns  an  unwary  enemy,  or  mimics 
the  protective  device  of  some  other  creature. 

Admitting  all  this,  however,  there  still 
seems  to  be  evidence  to  show  that  nature  is 
fond  of  the  polka  dot,  per  se;  otherwise,  she 
would  have  achieved  any  of  the  ends  men- 
tioned in  some  other  way,  as  she  so  well 
knows  how  to  do.  She  is  always  doing  things 
in  some  other  way — in  scores  of  other  ways ; 
there  is  nothing  she  likes  to  do  better.  When 
she  chooses — as  she  does  in  South  America 
— she  gives  a  butterfly  a  pungently  disagree- 
able odor  which  protects  it,  in  spite  of  its 
lack  of  adaptive  coloring.  Again,  she 
hatches  one  egg  by  making  a  bird  do  time 
by  sitting  upon  it;  another  egg  is  incubated 
in  the  sand,  the  warmth  of  that  cosmic 
brooder,  the  sun,  answering  as  well  at  a  dis- 
tance of  some  ninety-three  million  miles  as 
the  warmth  of  a  hen  at  closer  range. 

An  equal  versatility  of  method  is  dis- 
played in  the  production  of  seeds  and  spores. 
One  fern  bears  its  spores  on  the  under  side 

118 


NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR  POLKA  DOTS 

of  its  fronds;  another  runs  up  a  separate 
stalk  for  them.  One  seed  falls  directly  to 
the  earth  and  another  has  wings  and  joins 
the  aviators.  One  animal  is  protected  by 
his  stripes  and  another  by  his  spots,  which 
brings  us  again  to  our  subject. 

Following  the  long,  long  trail  of  the  polka 
dot,  one  discovers  nature's  thrifty  habit  of 
making  the  most  of  every  one  of  her  designs. 
This  harmless  auto-plagiarism  finds  inci- 
dental testimony  in  such  names  as  the  tiger 
lily,  the  trout  lily,  the  leopard-frog,  and  the 
leopard  moth. 

Again,  a  study  of  seashells,  of  which  there 
are  legions  and  legions,  shows  the  polka  dot 
in  a  bewildering  number  of  sizes  and 
colors,  and  the  same  embellishment  is  worn 
by  a  vast  number  of  fishes  (like  the  spotted 
kelpfish,  and  giant  starfish)  and  reptiles. 
On  some  fishes — the  brook  trout  is  a  notable 
example — one  finds  an  illuminated  edition 
of  the  polka  dot,  or  a  dot  with  something 
like  a  prismatic  halo,  an  effect  nearly  dupli- 
cated in  the  leaves  of  the  adder-tongue,  or 
trout  lily,  as  it  is  better  named  by  John 

119 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Burroughs.  Hundreds  of  other  leaves,  like 
the  croton's  and  cucko-pint's,  also  flaunt  the 
order  of  the  polka  dot,  while  the  petals  of 
thousands  of  flowers  owe  the  last  touch  of 
their  charm  to  the  deft  addition  of  spots  and 
splashes  of  contrasting  or  harmonizing  color. 
Without  the  accent  of  its  tiger  spots,  what 
would  the  tiger  lily  be  save  a  peroxide  sub- 
stitute for  the  buxom  country  belle  of  the 
garden?  And  what,  indeed,  the  leopard  it- 
self, if,  with  the  assistance  of  Burbank,  it 
should  accept  the  challenge  of  Scripture  and 
change  its  spots? 

Not  only  does  the  polka  dot  beautify  the 
furs  of  many  animals,  but  used  singly,  in 
its  star  form,  it  lights  up  the  forehead  of  a 
dark  horse,  or  gives  a  chic  air  of  distinction 
at  the  throat  of  black  Miss  Tabby.  The 
collector  of  eggshells  likewise  knows  that  his 
treasures  owe  half  their  beauty  to  polka  dots, 
cunningly  diversified  in  size  and  color. 

Hardly  second  to  the  beauty  effected  by 
spots  on  the  petals  of  flowers,  is  the  beauti- 
ful finish  which  they  give  to  the  feathers  of 

birds  and  fowls,  of  all  sizes.    Something  like 

120 


NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR  POLKA  DOTS 

the  "final  touch,"  the  color  accent,  which  the 
French  achieve  by  a  black  piping  or  knot  of 
narrow  black  velvet  ribbon,  the  great 
modiste,  nature,  attains  by  the  use  of  polka 
dots  on  the  breast,  wings  or  tails  of  her  most 
modish  birds.  Witness  the  white  polka  dots 
on  the  loon,  the  guinea,  fowl,  the  beautiful 
dappled  breast  of  the  blue-winged  teal,  and 
the  spotted  sand-piper.  The  sparrow  hawk, 
the  belted  kingfisher,  the  vesper  and  song 
sparrow,  the  meadow  lark,  brown  thrasher, 
wood  and  hermit  thrushes,  and  the  gorgeous 
flicker  furnish  other  illustrations  of  nature's 
canny  artistry  with  polka  dots. 

Beside  the  diversity  produced  by  chang- 
ing the  size  of  the  spot,  or  making  it  slightly 
oval  in  shape,  it  is  infinitely  varied,  as  man 
has  varied  his  use  of  it  in  fabrics,  by  the  use 
of  different  colors  in  the  spot  itself  and  its 
background,  till  it  reaches  its  de  luxe  form 
on  the  superb  wings  of  moths  and  butterflies 
and  on  the  tails  of  peacocks.  Nor  do  the 
glorified  spots  on  the  peacock's  tail  lose  any- 
thing of  their  beauty  because  we  are  told 

that  their  iridescence  helps   obscure  their 
121 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

visibility,  or  because  they  may  have  been  the 
result  of  the  aesthetic  preferences  of  the 
female  birds. 

Similarly,  the  wonderful  eye-spots  on  the 
wings  of  moths  are  just  as  beautiful  when 
we  know  (on  the  authority  of  Darwin)  that 
they  are  pierced  by  birds  and  thus  protect 
the  more  vital  parts  of  the  moth.  The  anno- 
tations of  the  naturalists  only  add  another 
nimbus  of  wonder  to  the  polka  dot,  little  as 
it  may  need  it.  "If  the  beauty  of  flowers," 
writes  Mr.  E.  Poulton,  F.  R.  S.,  "has  fol- 
lowed so  completely  from  insect  selection, 
are  we  not  compelled  to  admit  that  insects 
possess  an  aesthetic  sense — a  sense  which 
could  discriminate  between  the  slightly  dif- 
ferent attractions  displayed  by  suitors,  just 
as  we  all  admit  that  it  has  discriminated  be- 
tween the  slightly  different  attractions  dis- 
played by  flowers?" 

However  these  wonder-spots  may  have 
been  produced,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any 
of  the  lesser  masterpieces  of  nature  surpass 
the  subtly  exquisite  tinting  of  the  polka  dot 

and  its  background  as  it  is  found  on  the 
122 


NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR  POLKA  DOTS 

wings  of  certain  moths  and  butterflies, 
though  some  of  the  elite  of  frogdom  are 
close  rivals  in  the  color  contest. 

The  magnificent  pale  green  wings  of  the 
actius  luna,  with  its  glorified  spots,  and  the 
demas  propinquilinea,  the  sphinx  Jamai- 
censis,  the  telea  polyphemus,  and  the  Owl's- 
head  butterfly  from  India  might  well  serve 
as  chromatic  models  for  an  interior  deco- 
rator, or  color  schemes  for  ravishing  gowns 
and  hats.  Or,  if  a  modiste  wished  other 
''exclusive"  patterns,  she  might  find  among 
the  thousand  fungi  of  America  hundreds  of 
color  modulations  of  unique  charm. 

Here  also  one  finds  Nature  rioting  in 
masterful  triumphs  with  the  polka  dot,  from 
the  modest  parasol  mushroom  in  a  cream 
gown  with  umber  spots  and  the  russula  vivi- 
scens,  in  white  with  pale  green  spots,  to  the 
violet  cortinarius  in  lavender  with  brown 
polkas  and  the  brilliant  orange  and  white  of 
the  deadly  amanita  muscaria. 

Among  the  more  lowly  wearers  of  the 
Order  of  the  Polka  Dot  are  toads,  frogs, 
turtles,  bugs,  beetles,  and  worms.  People 

123 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

who  sum  up  with  an  "Ugh!"  their  entire 
reaction  on  these  humble  creepers  and 
crawlers  have  little  notion  how  much  beauty 
they  miss  by  avoiding  a  closer  acquaintance 
with  them.  Even  our  most  common  brown 
toad,  that  obliterates  himself  in  the  garden 
by  wearing  embossed  polka  dots  in  the 
earth's  own  soft-brown  colors,  is  an  eloquent 
preacher  of  the  doctrine  of  adaptation  to 
one's  environment.  Wandering  farther 
afield,  one  finds  the  same  doctrine  preached 
in  more  florid  style  by  frogs  whose  richly 
tinted  and  mottled  jackets  quite  equal  the 
most  sumptuous  wings  of  birds,  moths,  or 
butterflies.  The  leopard  frog,  which  is  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  in  North  America,  and 
the  Florida  tree  frog  are  good  examples  of 
nature's  knack  of  doing  the  same  thing  in 
an  entirely  different  way.  The  latter  frog 
may  be  green,  or  brown,  distinctly  spotted 
or  not,  and  may  be  found  while  the  change 
from  green  to  brown  is  in  process,  a  condi- 
tion which  emphasizes  the  spots. 

How  can  one  jump  away  from  a  frog,  or 
wish  him  to  jump  away,  when  his  royal  vest- 

124 


NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR  POLKA  DOTS 

ment  may  be  broidered  with  polka  dots,  rim- 
med with  light,  on  a  background  of  shaded 
greens,  beautifully  blended  with  warm  soft 
browns,  brick  reds,  and  old  rose,  or  terra 
cotta  hues? 

Once  more,  on  a  smaller  scale,  one  may 
find  tiny  duplicates  of  a  great  many  of  the 
de  luxe  polkas  and  their  shaded  backgrounds 
among  worms  upon  which  we  wisely  or 
needlessly  set  foot. 

Even  the  calico  bean,  which  to-day  is  and 
to-morrow  is  boiled  into  drab  digestibility, 
when  it  is  first  taken  from  the  pod,  wears 
in  dainty  old  rose  the  insignia  of  the  Order 
of  the  Polka  Dot.  Yet  are  we  forced  to 
conclude  that  this  order  is  not  conferred  by 
nature  as  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
any  inward  grace,  else  it  would  not  be  worn 
by  the  deadly  amanita  or  by  poisonous  rep- 
tiles. Indeed,  the  lower  world  pretty  gen- 
erally understands  that  bright  garish  colors 
mean  "Look  out,  it  tastes  nasty!",  as  the 
would-be  eaters  of  the  leopard  moth  could 
testify. 

Still  more  ignoble  wearers  of  the  order 

125 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

under  consideration  are  mouldy  bread  and 
cake,  cream  belated  of  its  skimming  and 
garments  mildewed  by  exposure  to  damp 
sunless  weather.  Yet  on  these  seemingly  un- 
attractive objects  one  sometimes  finds  a  col- 
lection of  richly  tinted  spots  which  stir  all 
the  founts  of  wonder. 

Perhaps  freckles,  which  are  beautifully 
duplicated  on  a  conch  shell,  should  also  be 
included  in  our  inventory.  And  this  famil- 
iar variation  of  the  polka  dot  we  certainly 
would  not  have  abolished  from  the  sun- 
kissed  face  of  any  boy  who  wears  them. 
With  him  the  freckle  is  a  heaven-conferred 
badge  of  wholesome,  hatless  living,  and  not 
without  a  sigh  can  one  see  his  freckles  fade 
into  the  common  monotone  of  a  grown-up 
complexion. 

Knowing  the  innumerable  artistic  wiles 
with  which  nature  works  from  a  single  start- 
ing point,  one  is  tempted  to  a  farther  sus- 
picion. Are  her  fields  of  grass,  dotted  with 
daisies,  and  the  star-studded  heavens  them- 
selves, only  more  of  her  superlative  triumphs 
with  polka  dots? 

126 


NATURE'S  FONDNESS  FOR  POLKA  DOTS 

On  third  and  fourth  thoughts,  one  is  con- 
vinced that  not  even  with  the  star-spangled 
skies  does  nature  end  her  experiments  in 
this  line,  since  no  one  ever  caught  her  end- 
ing anything,  when  she  knows  a  smoother 
way  of  shading  it  into  something  else,  or  of 
hiding  her  trail  by  crossing  an  invisible 
stream  to  an  invisible  territory,  if  one  may 
change  the  figure. 

Crossing  this  invisible  stream  after  her, 
one  comes  out  on  the  other  side  in  the  im- 
material realm  of  mind,  where  one  finds  our 
dear  old  Sorceress  still  at  her  old  tricks,  ex- 
perimenting with  intellectual  polka  dots  to 
give  tone  and  variety  against  a  background 
of  neutral  souls  in  dull  gray  tints.  How 
otherwise  may  we  account  for  the  fine 
dappled  fancies  of  the  wits  and  poets,  the 
pied  epigrams  of  the  proverb-makers  and 
the  mental  polka  dots  de  luxe  of  Shake- 
speare? 

And  if  in  this  province  one  asks  how  and 
why,  it  may  be  possible  that  some  philoso- 
pher will  tell  us  that  here  also  the  intellec- 
tual polka  dot  is  the  result  of  the  "aesthetic 

127 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

preferences"  of  the  opposite  sex,  and  that 
this  psychical  coloration  may  be  "protec- 
tive," "typical,"  "alluring,"  "warning,"  or 
"mimetic." 

Still  farther  one  might  follow  the  trail  of 
the  polka  dot,  did  it  not  lead  into  a  region 
somewhat  preempted  by  the  clergy,  who 
pray  for  a  passport  which  shall  read  "with- 
out spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing,"  thus 
plainly  admitting  the  existence  of  the  polka 
dot  in  the  moral  world  as  well.  Neverthe- 
less, even  here  (if  the  laity  may  be  allowed 
to  speak  in  a  gentle  and  tentative  tone) ,  one 
is  haunted  by  a  doubt  whether  a  soul  with- 
out a  single  spot  or  wrinkle — not  a  single 
one,  be  it  understood — would  draw  us  so 
humanly  and  tenderly  as  one  with  just  a  few 
endearing  moral  freckles. 


128 


VIII 
A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 


campers  in  southern  New  Hamp- 
shire  were  sitting  in  a  pine  grove  near 
their  tents,  when  one  of  their  number  dis- 
covered a  partially  barked  fragment  of  a 
pine  bough,  a  little  over  two  feet  long,  upon 
which  was  some  very  interesting  etching. 
Stripping  the  bark  farther  on  the  bough, 
the  discoverer  found  that  the  etching  con- 
tinued with  certain  breaks,  which  may  have 
been  poetic  paragraphing,  the  entire  length 
of  the  stick. 

The  designs  on  the  bough  were  so  elusive, 
suggestive,  and  artistic,  that  they  provoked 
further  search  whenever  the  grove  was  re- 
visited. As  a  result,  there  was  gathered, 
before  the  summer  was  over,  a  pretty  com- 
plete local  edition  of  the  work  of  that  gifted 
beetle,  painfully  known  to  entomology  as  the 

129 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Pityophthorus  sparsus  Lee,  or  "White  pine 
wood  engraver."  It  was  not  till  the  follow- 
ing summer,  however,  that  the  masterpiece 
of  the  grove  was  discovered,  just  as  it  was 
about  to  be  fed  to  the  flames  of  the  camp- 
fire,  a  circumstance  which  will  recall  parallel 
cases  in  the  history  of  manuscripts  by  more 
consequential  authors  of  the  human  race. 
Yet,  however  obscure  the  birth  and  environ- 
ment of  these  lowly  artists,  it  gives  one  chilly 
pause  to  remember  how  near  our  reckless 
camp -party  came  to  destroying  what  may 
prove  to  be  the  magnum  opus  of  the  Shake- 
speare of  Beetledom,  unless  some  heartless 
whiffler  should  successfully  Baconize  its 
fame  with  the  critical  dust  of  barren  and 
irrelevant  pedantry. 

Compared  with  the  final  masterpiece  dis- 
covered (from  which  the  accompanying 
photographs  were  taken)  all  the  other  picto- 
graphs  found  were  obviously  the  work  of 
mere  amateurs,  hacks,  or  feeble  imitators. 
For  among  beetles  (Scolytidae)  as  among 
more  evolved  artists,  one  star  differeth  from 
another  star  in  glory.  But  this  particular 

130 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

pictograph  has  been  praised  by  no  less  of  an 
authority  than  John  Burroughs,  who  wrote : 
"It  is  the  most  astonishing  etching  done  by 
an  insect  that  I  have  ever  seen.  No  barbarian 
warrior  ever  decorated  his  war  club  with 
anything  like  such  delicacy  and  beauty." 

There  are  those — one  must  admit  in  pass- 
ing— who  will  consider  these  wonderful 
traceries  merely  as  utilitarian  tracks  of 
beetles  in  quest  of  incubators  and  food.  But 
careful  scrutiny  of  these  photographs  by  the 
inward  eye  yields  several  richer  interpreta- 
tions, and,  withal,  more  logical.  Would  a 
man,  even  a  literary  man,  who  was  eating 
an  apple,  etch  it  all  over,  in  the  process,  with 
beautiful  designs? 

Let  the  records  of  common  experience  an- 
swer the  question. 

We  are  therefore  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  this  pictograph  is  the  work  of  highly 
intelligent  and  evolved  beetles,  to  whom 
food  and  lodgings  were  but  means  to  higher 
ends.  They  did  not  etch  to  eat,  but  ate  to 
etch  again  another  day,  using  the  only 
medium  available  to  them  to  express  their 

131 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

reaction  on  the  bosky  beauty  of  their  en- 
vironment— thus  illustrating  in  microscopic 
fields  the  achievements  of  one 

"Who  breaks  his  birth's  invidious  bar, 
And  grasps  the  skirts  of  happy  chance" — 

forever  proving  that  nothing  can  smother 
the  true  Promethean  spark,  even  when  it  is 
lodged  in  the  lowly  breast  of  a  beetle. 

To  the  casual  observer,  these  etchings 
might  easily  pass  as  the  work  of  some  vermic- 
ulous  Whistler  or  Corot.  But  those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  Blake-like  fancies  of  the 
genus  Pityopthorus,  or  its  gifted  kindred 
of  the  genus  Ips,  would  never  confuse  even 
the  most  distinguished  works  of  a  worm 
with  those  of  our  artists.  A  second  error 
into  which  one  might  easily  fall  has  its  source 
in  the  pictograph  itself.  At  first  blush,  it 
looks  like  nothing  so  much  as  a  bold  plagiar- 
ism from  a  Japanese  model.  It  has  the  same 
unfettered  grace  and  fancy,  and  several  of 
its  figures  suggest  the  sacred  dragons  of  the 
Orient. 

Even  a  cursory  glance  at  the  photographs 

132 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

given  will  convince  the  reader  that  this  is 
the  work  of  no  Peter  Bellish  beetle,  oblivious 
of  the  beauty  of  its  surroundings,  but  an 
observing  insect,  keenly  alive  to  every  beau- 
tiful form  within  its  range  of  vision.  If  the 
reader  will  carefully  study  these  photo- 
graphs, he  will  find  vivid  impressionistic 
sketches  of  leaves,  ferns,  flowers,  roots,  twigs 
(pine  twigs,  especially),  bugs,  beetles,  un- 
dulating worms,  lizards,  dragon-flies,  moths, 
butterflies,  cones,  mosses,  and  mushrooms, 
each  reproduced  with  much  accuracy  of 
effect,  and  at  the  same  time  so  skillfully  uni- 
fied into  one  impressive  whole  that  they  sug- 
gest a  Balzacian  Comedie  Entomologique. 
Much  more,  one  suspects,  is  shown  on  this 
strange  pictograph  than  the  dull  human  eye 
may  verify  from  its  own  crude  and  limited 
perception. 

Here  and  there,  margined  by  leaves  and 
ferns,  one  finds  quaint  little  groups  of  tiny 
figures  that  might  be  earth  gnomes  or  pixies, 
invisible  in  real  life  to  the  human  eye.  Some 
of  these  groups,  with  their  sylvan  entourage, 
recall  the  work  of  Corot  in  the  same  field, 

133 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

though  many  of  the  scenes  found  in  the 
pictograph  are  more  warlike  than  those  of 
the  French  artist. 

As  a  whole,  the  pictograph  is  animated  by 
a  certain  joy  of  living  in  which  one  feels  an 
amorous  inspiration  as  well  as  the  more  im- 
personal afflatus  of  Pan,  even  as  one  feels 
in  the  beautiful  stanzas  of  "In  Memoriam" 
the  double  inspiration  of  nature  and  friend- 
ship. In  each  case  the  twofold  inspiration 
saves  the  work  of  each  artist  from  the  barren 
exposition  of  a  botanical  vivisectionist  who 
loves  his  herbarium  better  than  the  wood  rose 
on  its  stalk.  In  a  word,  our  pictograph  is 
the  record  of  poets  whose  perception  is  rain- 
bowed  with  imagination. 

As  one  studies  the  figures  of  the  picto- 
graph, one  wonders  what  a  skillful  carver 
of  the  human  race  could  do  on  a  pine  bough 
of  the  same  size,  were  he  asked  to  unify  into 
one  coherent  whole  his  sylvan  impressions  of 
the  same  grove  in  which  this  classic  was 
found.  That  the  early  human  inhabitants 
of  our  country  certainly  failed  to  produce 
anything  half  so  artistic  in  their  pictographs 

134 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

and  petroglyphs  is  easily  proved  by  a  com- 
parison of  the  early  samples  of  picture  writ- 
ing by  the  Amerinds  and  the  study  in  hand. 
An  impartial  comparison  of  the  petro- 
glyph  at  Millsboro,  Pennsylvania  (of  which 
an  illustration  is  given),  the  work  of 
Amerinds  of  the  Pueblo  kind,  and  the  picto- 
graph  of  our  New  Hampshire  Scolytidae 
will  convince  the  most  skeptical  that  the 
honors  are  all  with  the  lowly  artists  of  the 
Granite  State. 

In  the  work  of  the  latter,  too,  there  are  a 
subtle  elusiveness  and  suggestiveness  that 
pique  the  fancy.  The  more  one  studies  it, 
the  more  it  yields  between  its  lines.  Some 
of  its  sections  convey  a  distinctly  lyric  effect 
and  others  are  as  unmistakably  epic  in  their 
spirited  etching.  There  are  also  certain 
quiet  lines  indicative  of  bucolic  calm  beside 
still  waters. 

To  ignore  this  little  classic  and  make  no 
attempt  to  discover  the  message  it  conveys, 
simply  because  its  authors  were  beetles, 
seemed  unworthy  of  the  fair  and  catholic 
spirit  which  should  belong  to  literary  criti- 

135 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

cism.  The  writer  consequently  determined 
to  discover  the  key  to  the  pictograph,  re- 
membering that  far  more  difficult  feats  were 
achieved  by  those  who  studied  the  Rosetta 
stone  until  it  led  to  the  decipherment  of  the 
ancient  monuments  of  Egypt.  In  a  case 
like  this,  however,  the  outer  eye  was  ob- 
viously of  little  use  in  comparison  with  the 
subliminal  one.  By  the  light  of  the  latter, 
the  gracefully  intricate  lines  of  the  Pine 
Pictograph  at  last  yielded  their  secrets,  al- 
though the  reader  needs  to  bear  in  mind  that 
the  English  language  can  give  but  a  meager 
notion  of  the  quaint  and  dainty  fancies  of 
the  original.  But  the  following  free  trans- 
lation may  give  the  general  trend  of  the 
Scolytidian  musings  carved  on  the  bough: 

O,  cool  sweet  woods  about  me 
Where  young  leaves  bud,  and  swaying  ferns 
Salute  the  breezy  morn; 
O,  juicy  luscious  pine-bark  made  for  us, 
And  mosses  soft  that  tremble  not 
When  earth-gnomes  dance  with  down-light  feet 
To  murmurous  music  of  the  leaves. 
Awake!  ye  dainty   snails,   that   sleep   in   cradles 
strange, 

136 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

The  morn  has  come; 

The  graceful  lizard  winds  him  in  and  out 

Among  the  knotted  roots  in  quest  of  food; 

The  agile  worm  with  curious  hoops 

Adorns  the  fallen  tree; 

Late  slumbering  violets,  awake! 

And  dye  your  petals  sweet, 

With  purple  shadows  from  the  hills. 

O,  wondrous  moths,  with  dappled  wings, 

Fly  low,  that  we  may  picture  forth 

Your  charming  form  and  flight; 

Gay  dragon-fly,  in  gauzy  shimmer-sheen, 

Dart  not  so  swift  above  us, 

But  pause  the  while  we  trace 

Upon  this  bough  your  lithe  and  slender  shape. 

Now  leaps  my  heart!  for  hither  comes 
The  fairest  form  of  all — 
The  queen  of  morn  and  noon  and  eve; 
Come,  come,  my  love,  sweet  Pity-op; 
How  wide  the  space  that  lies  between  our  hearts, 
Though  I  with  wings  as  swift  as  dragon-flies 
Or  thoughts  of  dinner  close  at  hand, 
Rush  wildly  to  salute  my  love. 
Come  sit  with  me,  sweet  Ips-i-me, 
Beneath  this  dainty  twig  of  pine, 
And  such  delight  shall  fill  our  hearts 
That  all  the  creeping  world  may  go  its  way 
So  thou,  my  love,  dost  by  me  stay. 
137 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

So  one  might  go  on,  indefinitely,  with  the 
paraphrase  of  this  inimitable  pictograph,  but 
one  is  loath  to  mangle  its  exquisite  measures 
with  the  clumsy  makeshifts  of  an  English 
version.  Even  Professor  Murray,  whose 
translations  of  Euripides  should  win  him  a 
seat  on  Parnassus,  declares  that  they  only 
dimly  convey  the  beauty  of  the  original. 
How  much  more  impossible  is  it  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  delicate  conceptions  of  our  little 
poets  of  beetledom.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that 
few  contemporary  writers  sustain  the  inter- 
est of  their  compositions  more  successfully 
than  it  is  done  in  this  bosky  Pictograph. 

Carping  critics  there  may  be  who  will  in- 
sinuate that  certain  passages,  notably  the 
lines, 

Though  I  with  wings  as  swift  as  dragon-flies 
Or  thoughts  of  dinner  close  at  hand, 

are  covert  plagiarisms  from  Shakespeare; 
but  such  a  charge  is  manifestly  absurd. 
There  is  not  one  chance  in  a  thousand  that 
any  of  the  collaborators  of  this  classic  ever 
heard  of  Shakespeare.  The  same  answer 

138 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

may  be  made  to  those  who  may  go  out  of 
their  way  to  prove  that  the  last  five  lines 
given  were  suggested  to  their  authors  by 
similar  ones  by  Omar  Khayyam.  As  Cole- 
ridge once  wisely  observed,  "There  are  peo- 
ple who  cannot  conceive  of  original  springs, 
great  and  small,  but  must  charitably  derive 
every  rill  they  behold  flowing  from  a  per- 
foration in  some  other  man's  tank." 

Another  class  of  critics  there  may  be  who 
would  attempt  to  trace  in  this  unique  master- 
piece the  influence  of  the  Italian  Renaissance 
or  the  Rossetti  school  of  poetry.  But  again, 
one  may  waive  the  findings  of  all  such 
inconsequent  big-wigs,  and  for  once  feel  cer- 
tain that  this  pictograph  would  have  been 
no  different  had  there  never  been  any  such 
thing  as  The  Italian  Renaissance  or  any 
such  man  as  Rossetti.  This  is  a  great  com- 
fort, when  one  remembers  how  many  other 
things  have  been  made  to  feel  the  influence 
of  some  renaissance  or  other. 

And  now  the  question  arises,  has  recogni- 
tion come  too  late  to  warm  with  glory  the 
hearts  of  the  composers  of  our  pictograph, 

139 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

or  may  one  indulge  in  the  more  joyous  con- 
clusion that  they  are  quite  above  the  last 
infirmity  of  noble  minds?  In  the  latter  case, 
the  fame  of  their  achievement  may  be  made 
over  to  the  Granite  State  where  this  mas- 
terpiece was  written,  adding  yet  another  star 
or  stars  to  the  galaxy  of  the  literary  firma- 
ment of  New  Hampshire. 

All  attempts  to  discover  anything  about 
the  early  life  and  environment  of  the  authors 
of  this  pictograph,  in  the  region  where  it  was 
found,  were  futile.  None  of  their  neighbors 
could  give  any  information  about  the  work, 
or  its  authors,  thus  underscoring  again  those 
pertinent  lines  by  Aldrich: 

The  butcher  who  served  Shakespeare  with  his  meat 
Doubtless  esteemed  him  lightly  as  a  man 
Who  knew  not  how  the  market  prices  ran. 

Interviewing  a  member  of  the  same 
species,  the  Pityophthorus  sparsus  Lee,  to 
which  the  authors  of  this  pictograph  belong, 
one  was  not  surprised  to  meet  a  modest,  un- 
assuming beetle,  of  much  repose  of  manner 
— though  the  fact  that  the  beetle  was  dead 

140 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

may  have  had  much  to  do  with  the  latter 
characteristic.  In  its  personality,  this  beetle 
is  not  impressive  from  size,  as  its  length  is 
not  more  than  an  inconsiderable  fraction  of 
an  inch. 

But  what  has  physical  size  to  do  with 
genius  ? 

In  the  place  where  this  silent  representa- 
tive of  his  species  was  interviewed,  the  whole 
genus  enjoyed  a  bad  eminence  from  an 
ethical  point  of  view.  Cold,  impartial  statis- 
tics showed  that  millions  and  millions  of  dol- 
lars' worth  of  timber  had  been  destroyed  by 
the  Scolytidae,  and  in  the  destruction,  the 
"white  pine  wood  engraver"  and  his  naughty 
kin,  of  the  genus  Ips,  were  the  ruthless 
leaders.  Finally,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who 
do  not  care  to  read  between  the  lines  of  the 
work  reviewed,  but  merely  for  the  cold 
scientific  facts,  these  Gradgrindian  conces- 
sions will  be  made: 

The  beautiful  etchings  which  have  fur- 
nished the  text  for  this  article  are  made  in 
this  way: 

"The  adult  beetles  excavate  their  radiat- 

141 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

ing  curved  egg  galleries  from  a  central 
cavity.  The  eggs  are  placed  in  little  niches 
along  the  sides  of  these  galleries,  from  which 
minute  larvae  or  grubs  hatch  and  burrow  at 
right  angles  to  the  mother  gallery  through 
the  inner  bark  to  the  surface  of  the  wood. 
These  are  known  as  larval  mines  or  food 
burrows,  because  they  are  made  by  the  larva? 
in  quest  of  food.  When  the  larvae  have 
reached  full  growth,  they  transform,  at  the 
end  of  the  burrow,  into  adults  like  their 
parents.  Then  they  emerge  and  repeat  the 
process." 

This  is  the  plain  unvarnished  tale  of  the 
pine-carved  bough,  as  courteously  furnished 
to  the  writer  by  Dr.  A.  D.  Hopkins,  the  ex- 
pert in  charge  at  the  Bureau  of  Entomology 
in  Washington.  This,  perhaps,  is  all  that 
science  may  demand.  But,  considered  as  a 
highly  specialized  work  of  art,  which  it  un- 
deniably is,  were  it  just  or  fitting  to  review 
it  wholly  in  a  matter-of-fact  way?  Nay, 
nay,  that  would  be  too  much  like  estimating 
as  a  historical  record  "A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,"  to  which  this  pictograph 

142 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

bears  a  striking  resemblance  and  for  which  it 
would  make  a  capital  series  of  illustrations. 

Possibly  some  of  the  chronologically  nice 
may  object  to  the  interpretation  of  the  pic- 
ture-writing given,  on  the  ground  that  part 
of  the  etching  was  done  by  larvae  before  they 
saw  the  outer  world  so  minutely  reproduced 
in  the  pictograph.  One  must  admit  that  this 
fact  does  conflict  with  the  theory  ad- 
vanced in  the  earlier  part  of  this  review,  and 
seems  to  prove  that  the  pictograph  is  a  mere 
lusus  natures,  instead  of  a  consciously  artis- 
tic work  of  a  high  order.  This  objection, 
however,  is  nothing  in  comparison  with  many 
scientific  obstructions,  which  in  other  fields 
have  been  blown  away  like  thistledown  by 
the  method  popularly  known  as  "reconcilia- 
tion." In  this  case,  the  reconciliation  is 
simple  and  convincing  in  proportion  to  the 
mental  amenability  of  the  reader. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  Mrs.  Pity- 
ophthorus  has  seen  the  outer  world,  of  moss, 
leaves,  twigs,  bugs,  and  moths  before  she 
lays  her  eggs  in  the  gallery  which  she  makes 
on  the  pine  bough.  Hence  the  artistic  re- 

143 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

action  of  Madame  Pity  on  the  world  about 
her  undoubtedly  is  felt  as  a  prenatal  influ- 
ence on  the  larvae,  which  faithfully  record  in 
their  etchings  the  pictures  held  in  the  mind 
of  Mother  Pity.  Like  the  bird's  song  which 
is  not  taught,  but  comes  as  an  inherited  in- 
stinct, the  Sparsian  genius,  in  another  field, 
is  also  a  natal  gift.  But  far  back  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  development  of  the  scolytidae 
it  is  conceivable  that  the  mother  Pity  op, 
like  man,  did  not  observe  the  beauties  of 
nature  so  keenly  as  now,  and  as  a  result,  it 
is  probable  that  the  prenatal  impetus  given 
to  the  larvae  was  much  less  artistic,  so  that 
the  early  pictographs  did  not  effect  the  as- 
tonishing union  of  use  and  beauty  in  their 
lines  which  is  evident  in  the  original  of  these 
photographs. 

The  fact  that  there  is  extant  no  reproduc- 
tion of  any  pictograph  of  the  Dark  Ages  of 
the  Scolytida?  would  seem  to  bear  out  this 
theory.  Had  any  such  masterpiece  been 
produced,  it  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
saved.  Supporting  this  view  is  the  well- 
known  edict  of  Concord  that  there  is  no  such 

144 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

thing  as  luck  in  literature.  None  of  these 
theories,  however,  is  advanced  with  dog- 
matic intent.  Here,  as  in  all  other  provinces 
of  speculation,  there  should  be  given  full 
liberty  of  individual  interpretation.  Some, 
indeed,  who  study  these  photographs  may 
regard  our  pictograph  as  a  plain  Beetle 
Diary,  a  rival  of  the  one  by  Pepys ;  and  much 
might  be  said  in  support  of  this  conclusion. 

But  these  variations  of  conjecture  are  of 
comparatively  minor  importance.  The 
pivotal  fact  disclosed  in  studying  the  haunts 
and  habits  of  beetles  is  the  continuous 
romance  and  mystery  that  one  finds  every- 
where, whether  one  bores  through  the  bark 
of  a  tree,  or  digs  down  into  the  earth,  or  ex- 
plores the  water  or  air. 

As  oblivious  of  men  as  most  men  are  of 
it,  the  beetle  woos  and  weds,  and  attempts  to 
rear  its  young.  Then  comes  the  conflict 
which  makes  the  plot  of  the  story,  which  may 
turn  out  a  tragedy.  When  the  beetle  thinks 
all  the  world  its  own  (as  it  may  have  seemed 
in  the  early  nineties  when  the  beetle  hordes 
invaded  Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia, 

145 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

destroying  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  tim- 
ber) there  comes  "a  frost,  a  chilling  frost," 
and  a  fungus  frDin  one  knows  not  where  at- 
tacks the  beetle  and  wipes  all  his  battalions 
out  of  existence.  Or,  again,  a  parasitical 
insect  bores  down  through  the  bark  which 
covers  the  beetle  dormitories,  and  eats  the 
dreaming  baby  beetles  as  nonchalantly  as  the 
human  race  eat  oysters. 

We  are  thus  once  more  confronted  by  the 
same  old  interrogations  which  the  universe 
levels  against  man  wherever  his  research 
may  lead  him.  Why  is  there  a  destructive 
force  made  to  lie  in  wait  for  every  beautiful 
thing  in  the  universe,  from  the  smallest 
flower  that  blooms  to  the  noble  pine  ignobly 
slain  by  beetles? 

Why  indeed,  unless  it  be  to  evoke  from 
man — as  it  always  has  done — something 
mightier  than  any  destructive  force  about 
him.  For  nature,  like  the  good  teacher  she 
is,  puts  in  her  mammoth  textbook  of  the  uni- 
verse not  only  a  million  problems,  but  along- 
side of  each  set  of  them  one  or  more  ex- 
amples to  show  how  the  problems  may  be 

146 


A  RARE  PICTOGRAPH 

solved.  On  one  page  she  shows  the  beetle 
destroying  the  pine,  but  on  another  page  she 
shows  how  the  beetle  may  be  destroyed  by 
a  parasite,  thus  giving  a  hint  toward  the 
solution  of  all  similar  problems.  Or,  vary- 
ing her  problem  and  example,  she  shows  man 
how  the  sometimes  odious  law  of  contagion 
may  be  craftily  used  (as  he  has  learned  to 
use  it  with  the  "wilt  disease")  to  put  an  end 
to  the  devastations  of  the  brown-tail  moth. 

And  while  the  entomologist  is  solving  his 
problems  by  pitting  one  destructive  force 
against  another,  the  sociologist  is  hard  at 
work  upon  the  far  more  knotty  problem — 
unsolved  through  the  ages — of  destroying 
the  parasites  which  attack  the  soul  and  body 
of  man  himself. 


147 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 


U.  8.  Bu.  Eth. 


PETEOGLYPH   AT  MILL8BOHO,  PENNSYLVANIA 


Note: — The  photographs  from  which  these  illustrations  were  made, 
were  taken  by  Mr.  Herbert  Gleason  of  Boston,  whose  work  might  well  ex- 
cite envy  in  the  breasts  of  the  tiny  artists  who  made  the  original.  Grateful 
acknowledgments  are  also  due  to  Dr.  Charles  W.  Johnson  of  the  Museum 
of  Natural  History  in  Boston,  for  various  scientific  data  and  to  Dr.  A.  D. 
Hopkins  of  the  National  Museum  of  Washington,  for  the  identification  of 
the  signatures  of  the  authors  of  the  pictograph  and  the  full  names  of  the 
beetle  authors.  (E.  B.  S.) 


148 


IX 

WHEN  THE  LEAF  IS  WOO'D 
FROM  OUT  THE  BUD 

T  S  there  a  whim  or  fancy  in  feminine  attire 
**•  for  which  one  may  not  find  a  precedent 
in  nature?  Did  ever  a  woman  wear  a  silk 
petticoat  with  more  elaborate  ruffles  upon 
ruffles,  and  scallops,  than  are  flaunted  in  any 
garden  by  the  luxurious  kale,  whose  tran- 
sient glory  limply  departs  in  a  dish  of 
greens?  Scarcely  less  elaborate  in  form  and 
coloring  are  the  curly-cued  leaves  of  that 
highly  evolved  chromatic  triumph,  a  head  of 
lettuce  in  russet,  bronze,  and  old  rose.  How 
dainty  too  are  the  fairy  fripperies  worn  by 
parsley,  parsnip,  carrots,  and  our  common 
roadside  yarrow,  though  all  yield  in  grace  to 
Miss  Asparagus,  whose  ethereal  leafage  is 
so  perilously  like  green  aigrettes  that  one  al- 
most suspects  her  of  plagiarism. 

Between  the  Whistler-like  delicacy  of  the 

149 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

asparagus  and  the  broad,  coarse-fibered  leaf 
of  the  common  pie  plant,  or  the  palm,  what 
a  bewildering  diversity  of  marvels  does 
nature  display  when  the  folded  leaf  is 
woo'd  from  out  the  bud!  Considering  this 
diversity  in  the  gowning  of  plants,  shrubs, 
and  trees,  one  perceives  that  women  "favor" 
nature  far  more  than  do  their  brothers,  who 
use  only  a  limited  range  of  goods  and  cuts 
in  their  raiment.  Yet  women,  in  the  myriad 
of  fabrics  and  models  which  they  adopt, 
from  the  gauziest  of  diaphanous  weaves, 
through  every  thinkable  weight  and  shade  of 
cotton,  wool,  silk,  satin,  and  velvet,  cannot 
surpass  the  cuts  and  colorings  seons  ago 
conceived  by  nature  for  the  exquisite  robing 
of  plants  and  trees. 

Ah  me !  what  an  art  school  would  that  have 
been  for  any  student  who  could  have  been 
present  in  the  great  open  studio  of  nature, 
when  the  leaves  of  plants  and  petals  of 
flowers  were  being  designed,  and  the  secret 
life-law  of  their  unfolding  forever  imparted 
to  them!  Who  would  not  fain  have  heard 
the  secret  edict,  with  its  close-sealed  reasons, 

150 


WHEN  THE  LEAF  IS  WOO'D 

which  decreed  its  round,  dancing  leaves  to 
the  poplar,  its  changing  leafy  glories  to  the 
maple,  and  the  aristocratic  cuts  and  rich 
autumnal  tints  to  the  oaks? 

If  one  can  fancy  any  studio  of  nature 
with  walls  nearer  than  the  blue  of  heaven,  let 
one  picture  such  an  inclosure,  completely 
lined,  in  graded  rows,  with  the  millions  of 
different  kinds  of  leaves  fashioned  for  plants, 
shrubs,  and  trees.  Perhaps  some  natural 
history  museum  of  the  future  will  reserve  a 
large  room,  showing  on  its  walls,  below  a  line 
on  the  level  with  the  eye,  samples  of  all  the 
leaves  in  the  world,  if  that  is  a  possibility. 
Such  a  collection  would  be  an  autographic 
treasure-house;  for  the  leaf  is  the  signature 
of  the  tree,  or  one  of  them,  and  as  significant 
of  it  as  a  man's  autograph  is  of  him. 

One  set  of  columns  might  give  all  the 
round  leaves  from  the  smallest  leafy  circle, 
and  grading  up  to  those  big  enough  to  make 
a  hat.  Other  columns  could  be  reserved  for 
oval  leaves,  of  which  there  are  an  unthink- 
able number,  and  as  unthinkable  a  number 
of  different  ways  of  notching  their  outlines. 

151 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

The  countless  varieties  of  spear-  and  lance- 
shaped  leaves,  varying  in  size  from  a  pine- 
needle  to  one  which  could  do  deadly  execu- 
tion were  it  made  of  steel,  would  also  call 
for  a  large  number  of  rows  on  our  hypo- 
thetical walls. 

Very  superb  too  would  be  the  exhibit 
which  could  be  given  of  compound  leaves, 
from  the  dainty  wood  sorrel  to  the  large  and 
elaborate  horse-chestnut.  Skeleton  leaves, 
striped,  mottled,  red,  yellow,  old-rose,  and 
wine-colored  leaves;  leaves  scented,  shirred, 
and  specialized,  like  those  of  a  great  variety 
of  pitcher-plants,  would  each  add  their  long 
list  of  wonders  to  the  collection.  Other 
columns  would  hold  the  thick,  fleshy  leaves, 
of  thirsty  lands,  that  would  drink  them  dry 
but  for  the  small  number  of  their  pores  and 
their  firm,  resisting  texture.  Thousands  of 
other  leaves  too  might  be  found  to  grade 
down  from  the  thick  leaf  to  those  as  thin 
as  the  gauzy  wings  of  a  dragon-fly. 

Not  only  the  innumerable  variations  of 
contour,  edge,  and  thickness  would  call  for 
row  upon  row  of  illustrations,  but  the  sur- 

152 


WHEN  THE  LEAF  IS  WOO'D 

face  differences,  appreciable  to  the  touch, 
would  involve  another  problem  in  cross 
classification.  Between  the  soft,  velvety  leaf 
of  the  geranium  and  the  rough  surface  of 
the  sunflower's  leaf  or  that  of  the  pumpkin, 
nature  knows  how  to  ring  her  usual  num- 
ber of  changes,  which  include  leaves  soft 
as  the  finest  silk  or  satin  known  to  com- 
merce, as  well  as  those  which  match  its  rough 
homespun.  Whatever  one's  wildest  fancy 
might  call  for,  from  the  glossy  silk  of  the 
wax  begonia  leaf  to  the  heavy  reseda-tinted 
velvet  of  the  mullein,  nature  could  fur- 
nish for  this  exhibition. 

Nor  do  the  charms  of  leaves  end  with  their 
grace  of  form  and  color.  Other  arts  they 
know  and  practice  to  captivate  the  ear.  The 
"frou-frou"  of  feminine  garments,  which 
moved  Herrick  to  write, 

"Then,  then,  methinks,  how  sweetly  flows 
The  liquefaction  of  her  clothes," 

finds  its  prototype  in  the  leafy  frou-frou  of 
the  belles  of  woodland,  while  they  dance  the 
Pan-written  numbers  played  by  Maestro 

153 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

Wind.  To  the  ear  these  dances  are  as  sooth- 
ing as  the  forms  and  colors  of  the  leaves  are 
to  the  eye.  No  matter  how  intricate  the 
musical  cadences,  never  a  leaf  fails  to 
keep  time  to  the  music,  though  each  differ- 
ent leaf  dances  very  differently  the  same 
measures.  The  poplar,  whose  motto  is  al- 
ways "On  with  the  dance,"  is  so  coquettish, 
original,  and  graceful  in  her  interpretations 
of  wind  measures,  that  she  might  be  called 
the  Isadora  Duncan  of  Leaf-Land.  To 
watch  her  dance  the  Tempest  Fling  is  to  see 
an  arboresque  adaptation  of  the  lines, 

"A  health,  then,  to  the  happy, 

A  fig  to  him  that  frets, 
It  isn't  raining  rain  to  me, 
It's  raining  violets." 

Some  time,  perchance,  a  bosky  Beethoven 
will  write  a  full  score  of  the  dances  of  the 
leaves,  which  will  include  all  the  symphonies 
from  the  softest  lullaby,  which  lulls  the  wee 
fledgling  in  its  nest,  to  the  wild,  tempestuous 
measures  which  precede  a  hurricane. 

The  Indian  of  other  days,  the  Indian 
whose  poetic  spirit  still  lives  in  hundreds  of 

154 


WHEN  THE  LEAF  IS  WOO'D 

our  most  musical  geographical  names,  doubt- 
less could  have  told  the  month  of  the  year 
quite  exactly  by  his  sense  of  hearing,  when 
the  wind  swept  the  forest.  For  the  coming- 
out  dances  of  the  tender  young  leaves  are 
quite  different  to  the  ear  from  the  music 
of  the  full-grown  and  hardy  ones,  or  the  dry 
rustle  of  sapless  ones  about  to  fall.  It  is  like 
the  difference  between  a  choir  of  young  girls 
and  boys  and  a  choir  of  elderly  men  and 
women.  The  first  leafy  music  of  May 
might  be  an  easy  modulation  of  the  songs 
the  meadow  grasses  know.  Through  June 
and  July  the  tone  grows  fuller  and  stronger, 
but  begins  to  change  in  quality  with  the 
autumnal  changes  of  the  leaves.  Yet  all  the 
leafy  accomplishments  mentioned  did  not 
suffice  the  great  artist  of  the  open.  With 
nonchalant  disregard  of  the  well-known 
Shakespearian  warning,  she  not  only  dared 
to  paint  the  lily,  but  made  a  brilliant  suc- 
cess of  it,  once  more  establishing  for  the 
feminine  world  another  precedent  of 
change.  Beautiful  as  are  the  leaves  of  the 
maple,  oak,  and  other  deciduous  trees,  she 

155 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

knows  another  series  of  enchantments  she 
can  cast  upon  them  with  the  fairy  wand  of 
autumn. 

Once,  twice,  thrice,  she  waves  her  wand 
and  the  deep  green  leaves  blush  rosily  at 
their  tips.  A  fourth,  a  fifth,  and  one  knows 
not  how  many  more  waves  of  the  wand,  and 
the  maple  leaves  glow  crimson,  scarlet,  and 
garnet  or  turn  to  molten  gold,  as  if  touched 
by  the  hand  of  Midas.  Again  and  again 
while  the  world  sleeps,  the  invisible  wand  is 
waved,  till  at  last  we  see  the  original  of 
Lowell's  charming  lines: 

"What  mean  these  banners  spread, 
These  paths  with  royal  red 
So  gaily  carpeted? 
Comes  there  a  prince  to-day? 
Such  footing  were  too  fine 
For  feet  less  argentine 
Than  Dian's  own  or  thine, 
Queen  whom  my  tides  obey." 

But  long  after  the  royal  red  of  the  maple 
carpeting  is  spread,  the  waving  of  the  wand 
continues,  for  a  stronger  incantation  is 
needed  for  the  richer  aftermath  of  color 

156 


WHEN  THE  LEAF  IS  WOO'D 

which  dyes  the  hardy  oak  leaves  and  bleaches 
those  of  birch  and  beech.  One  by  one  the 
oaks  yield  to  the  spell,  till  their  deep  hues 
of  scarlet,  wine,  russet,  and  umber  are  woven 
into  rich  woodland  tapestry  which  better 
satisfies  the  eye  than  the  gaudier  pageant 
of  color  made  by  the  maples.  Far  beyond 
the  outposts  of  winter  the  oaks  sturdily 
flaunt  their  deep  warm  colors,  only  com- 
panioned and  sometimes  outstayed  by  a  lonely 
birch  or  beech,  which,  even  in  the  teeth  of 
late  winter  gales,  doughtily  waves  its  rust- 
ling banner  of  buff  or  white. 

Finally,  the  last  leaf  is  vanquished ;  but  be- 
fore the  surrender,  each  has  bequeathed  to 
the  parent  stem  or  stalk  that  bore  it  all  the 
stores  of  nutriment  which  it  has  industriously 
garnered  from  air,  sun,  and  rain,  when  it 
seemed  to  be  idly  dancing  in  the  breeze. 
How  great  this  bequest  may  be  to  a  tree,  one 
may  estimate  from  a  computation  made  by 
one  who  attempted  the  seemingly  impossible 
and  counted  seven  million  leaves  on  an  elm. 
From  this  leaf  surface  of  about  two  hundred 
thousand  square  feet,  or  five  acres,  the  sur- 

157 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

rounding  atmosphere  receives  its  daily  gift 
of  moisture  in  the  form  of  vapor,  and  the 
tree  the  food  which  helps  it  grow. 

Another  gracious  habit  of  leaves  is  not 
revealed  until  the  time  of  their  fall,  for 
which  they  make  a  unique  preparation, 
charmingly  described  by  Professor  Geddes: 
"Across  the  base  of  the  leaf-stalk,  in  a  region 
which  is  normally  firm  and  tough,  there 
grows  inward  a  partition  of  soft  juicy  cells 
actively  multiplying  and  expanding  into  a 
springy  cushion,  which  either  foists  the  leaf 
off,  or  makes  its  attachment  so  delicate  that 
a  gust  of  wind  serves  to  snap  the  narrow 
bridge  between  the  living  and  the  dead.  That 
the  scar  should  have  been  thus  prepared,  be- 
fore the  operation,  is  one  of  the  prettiest 
points  of  the  economy  of  woodland  nature." 

Another  pretty  point  in  nature's  drama 
of  the  leaves — an  end  of  less  apparent  de- 
sign— is  the  capriciously  beautiful  outline 
patterns  made  upon  the  earth  and  sidewalks 
by  the  fallen  leaves,  especially  by  those  of 
deep-cut  design,  like  the  pin  oak's  and  the 
red  oak's.  Very  reluctantly  does  one  see 

158 


WHEN  THE  LEAF  IS  WOO'D 

their  sometimes  charming  arrangement  dis- 
turbed by  ravaging  winds  or  lost  in  their 
snowy  burial.  Yet  our  hopes  are  not  buried 
with  them,  for  we  know  that  when  they  have 
become  a  part  of  the  mold  which  they  enrich, 
the  phoenix  spirit  of  nature  still  lives  in  the 
heart  of  the  tree,  waiting  its  April  call  from 
sun  and  cloud. 

Then  again  the  exquisite  moving  pictures 
of  leaf-land  slowly  appear  on  the  miraculous 
slides  of  summer.  The  new  leaf -buds  peep 
forth,  and  doff  their  little  brown  winter 
nightcaps  to  greet  the  world  in  every  hue  of 
bronze,  rose,  red,  and  dainty  green. 

And  mankind,  beholding  the  coming  and 
going  of  generation  after  generation  of 
leaves,  becomes  scripturally  wise,  forgetting 
those  that  are  behind  to  joy  in  those  that  are 
yet  to  come.  For 

"Ever  a  spring  her  primrose  hath,  and  ever  a  May 

her  May, 

Sweet  as  the  rose  that  died  last  year  is  the  rose 
that  is  born  to-day." 

And  all  that  is  true  of  the  rose  of  last  year 
is  as  true  of  the  leaf  that  is  born  to-day. 

159 


THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

"But  chief,  ambiguous  man,  he  that  can  know 
More  misery,  and  dream  more  joy  than  all." 

Shelley. 

TN  reviewing  the  works  of  any  human 
•*•  author,  one  generally  finds  some  one 
volume  of  superlative  merit,  the  masterpiece 
of  the  edition.  And  notwithstanding  that  the 
manuscripts  of  God,  in  heaven  and  in  earth, 
make  an  edition  whose  bare  enumeration 
paralyzes  thought,  the  world  is  unanimous 
in  its  vote  on  the  greatest  of  all  these  works. 
Published  in  two  wonderful  volumes,  known 
as  man  and  woman,  this  masterpiece  admits 
of  no  hard-and-fast  classification  as  history, 
romance,  or  poetry,  but  it  contains  much  of 
each,  like  the  great  bibles  of  the  human  race. 
Although  the  name  of  the  author  and 
publisher  is  not  openly  declared  on  the  manu- 

160 


THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

script  itself,  it  is  repeated  throughout  the 
work,  in  cipher,  which  is  understood  by  all 
who  know  how  to  read  between  the  lines. 
This  cipher,  however,  is  much  clearer  in 
some  editions  than  in  others,  for  it  must  be 
confessed  that  there  are  men  and  women 
who  have  "well-nigh  wormed  all  trace  of 
God's  finger  out  of  themselves." 

The  preface  of  this  manuscript,  exten- 
sively reviewed  as  The  Law  of  Evolution, 
was  written  large  in  the  history  of  cruder 
animal  life,  reaching  back  through  dismal 
seons  to  the  ooze — and  slime — beds  of  early 
creation. 

Each  of  the  volumes  mentioned  is  divided 
into  three  closely  interrelated  parts.  The 
first,  known  as  body,  was  for  ages  the  only 
one  which  could  be  read  at  all,  and  even  in 
such  reading,  all  its  marginal  references  were 
overlooked  by  everybody  save  a  few  seers 
and  poets.  But  it  is  with  the  vastly  more 
alluring  second  and  third  parts,  known  as 
mind  and  heart,  that  this  paper  is  chiefly 
concerned.  For  despite  the  warning  of 
Scripture,  that  the  hearts  of  kings  are  un- 

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ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

searchable,  one  may  assume  for  the  time 
being  that  the  hearts  of  other  people  are  not. 
Searching  them  by  their  own  light,  and 
the  light  of  the  searcher's  heart,  one  reaches 
the  conclusion  that  the  most  marvelous 
characteristic  of  man  is  the  endless  gamut 
of  his  responsiveness  and  its  manifold  ex- 
pression. All  other  wonders  of  creation  pale 
beside  a  being  so  endowed  that  he  is  related 
to  everything  in  the  universe.  Not  only  is 
there  nothing  human  which  is  foreign  to  him, 
but  virtually  nothing  sentient  or  non-sentient 
to  which  he  is  totally  indifferent,  or  in  which 
he  is  incapable  of  becoming  interested.  This 
description,  of  course,  ignores  the  man  who 
is  "dead  to  rapture  or  despair,"  and  refers 
to  evolved  man,  as  the  being  who  has  the 
greatest  capacity  for  being  alive.  Such  a 
man  is  responsive,  in  varying  degrees,  to 
everything  that  lives  and  moves  and  has 
being.  Nor  does  his  sense  of  kinship  stop 
with  those  of  his  race  and  kind,  or  with  the 
horse,  dog,  or  cat,  which  he  loves  to  stroke, 
but  tapers  off  into  fine  capillary  attachments 
to  birds,  bumblebees,  rivers,  rocks,  trees, 

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flowers,  the  very  grass  beneath  his  feet,  and 
the  good  brown  earth  under  the  grass. 

Between  the  Alps  and  the  tiniest  blossom, 
that  must  be  wooed  out  of  its  hiding  place, 
what  unnumbered  millions  of  things  there 
are  that  can  move  him,  either  to  a  pianissimo 
response  or  to  thoughts  and  feelings  that  lie 
too  deep  for  tears !  And  in  what  numberless 
ways  of  expression,  either  lightly  or  deeply, 
can  he  so  rival  Nature  that  he  can  move  his 
fellow  men  to  the  same  vast  range  of  thought 
and  feeling.  Yet  all  his  wisdom  and  cun- 
ning cannot  devise  an  instrument  so  deli- 
cately attuned  as  himself  to  vibrate  to  all  the 
harmonies  of  the  world,  from  the  chirp  of  a 
cricket  to  the  "immemorial  music  of  the  sea." 
Through  his  five  senses — and  one  knows  not 
how  many  more — life  continually  plays  upon 
the  myriad  strings  which  respond  in  thought 
and  feeling,  now  waking  melodies  no  man 
has  ever  been  able  wholly  to  transcribe,  or 
discords  which  spur  him  on  to  more  perfect 
harmonies. 

Nor  space  nor  time  can  muffle  the  heaven- 
writ  airs  which  the  universe  silently  plays 

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ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

upon  this  strange  instrument,  man.  Through 
his  eye,  star-beam  and  sunset  and  the  scroll 
of  the  buried  ages  reach  his  spirit  as  in- 
stantly as  the  color  and  fragrance  of  the 
violet  at  his  feet. 

Not  even  the  earth  and  all  its  fullness  can 
exhaust  man's  responsive  capacity.  Great 
as  the  world  is,  it  is  contained  in  man  several 
times  and  over.  Hence  the  blind  outreach- 
ings  of  this  unsatisfied  remainder  of  man, 
whose  infinity  gropes  for  Infinity  as  the  river 
seeks  the  sea.  From  this  groping  have 
sprung  all  the  religions  of  the  world,  bear- 
ing witness  to  a  capacity  which  failed  to 
find  satisfaction  in  all  the  world's  influx 
through  the  five  great  channels  of  sense. 
As  all  the  rivers  run  into  the  sea  and  the 
sea  is  never  full,  so  despite  all  that  flows  into 
the  mind  and  heart,  tHeir  receptivity  has 
never  been  overbrimmed. 

Stranger  still,  with  all  that  has  been  said 
and  written  about  mind,  and  all  that  we 
know  of  its  achievements,  no  one  has  ever 
seen  what  is  called  mind  or  soul,  which  for- 
ever eludes  us  like  the  fourth  dimension,  or 

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a  Spanish  to-morrow.  And  in  this  invisi- 
bility and  elusiveness  one  finds  its  closest  re- 
semblance to  the  Power  which  evoked  it,  and 
in  the  wonders  wrought  by  it,  a  mighty 
bolster  to  our  faith.  For  if  a  force  so  silent 
and  elusive  as  the  finite  mind  can  project 
into  the  material  world  creation  after  crea- 
tion, now  delicate  as  the  poetic  pinions  of 
imagination,  now  solid  as  the  sculptured 
stone  of  a  cathedral,  why  should  it  be 
thought  that  an  Infinite  mind  would  find 
greater  difficulty  in  projecting  into  space  the 
worlds  which  people  it? 

Unfortunately,  the  Mercury-like  fleetness 
of  the  mind,  as  well  as  its  magic  cloak  of  in- 
visibility, blinds  us  concerning  the  vast  scope 
of  its  powers.  Because  it  never  tells  us  when 
it  runs  away,  and  is  so  cheerfully  our  body 
servant  when  we  need  it  for  the  humdrum 
affairs  of  life,  we  too  often  assume  that  it 
is  tethered  to  our  little  personality,  and  per- 
fectly content  to  do  intellectual  chores  for 
us.  But  we  have  no  warrant  for  such  a  con- 
clusion. 

Nor  does  the  fact  that  our  mind  uses  our 

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ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

little  everyday  brain  prove  that  it  may  not 
use  some  other  brain.  In  a  word,  we  cannot 
be  certain  how  many  shares  we  hold  in  the 
Cosmic  Company,  Limited,  which  we  call 
our  mind.  But  from  the  fact  that  it  is  sel- 
dom idle  or  napping,  one  must  conclude  that 
when  it  is  not  using  our  brain,  it  may  be  just 
as  profitably  employed.  We  therefore  have 
ground  for  doubt  when  we  hear  a  man  say 
that  he  knows  his  own  mind.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  looks  as  if  it  might  be  the  last  thing 
he  knows  about  himself.  Even  when  mind 
is  writing  about  mind,  the  subject,  which  is 
both  active  and  passive,  may  be  looking  over 
one's  shoulder  and  chuckling  to  think  how 
much  the  process  resembles  an  attempt  to 
get  a  full-length  reflection  of  one's  body  in 
a  hand  mirror. 

But  if  the  time  should  ever  come  when 
man  will  encourage  his  shy  mental  sprite, 
by  unlimited  faith,  to  a  full  confession  of 
its  capacity,  it  may  become  as  easy  to  get 
a  full-length  photograph  of  the  mind  as  of 
the  body. 

As  might  be  expected,  this  unlimited  faith 

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in  the  power  of  the  mind  has  always  be- 
longed to  those  who  held  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  shares  of  intellectual  preferred  stock. 
Such  was  the  exhilarating  faith  of  the 
Chinese  sage  who  said,  "if  a  man  is  minded 
to  beat  a  stone,  the  stone  will  have  a  hole 
in  it,"  and  the  telescopic  vision  of  prophets, 
who  saw  a  time  when  men  would  be  too  wise 
to  keep  on  with  the  murderous  futility  of 
war.  Even  that  very  secular  seer,  Horace 
of  Sabine  villa,  reviewing  the  comparatively 
meager  feats  of  the  mind  up  to  his  own 
time,  declared  that  nothing  was  difficult  to 
mortals.  This  faith  was  still  more  em- 
phatically maintained  by  Christ,  who  was 
continually  girding  at  those  who  imposed 
any  limitation  upon  the  possibilities  of  the 
soul — a  belief  whose  ground  has  been 
strengthened  by  the  history  of  every  genera- 
tion of  the  world.  Each  succeeding  year 
some  new  victory  is  won  by  man  in  the  king- 
dom of  matter  or  spirit.  Dream  after  dream, 
the  inventor's,  the  chemist's,  the  alchemist's, 
the  physician's,  the  philanthropist's,  and  the 
reformer's  (each  of  which  may  have  long 

167 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

suffered  the  scorn  of  the  want- wit) ,  has  been 
wooed  into  fruitful  reality. 

The  marvel  of  man's  collaboration  with 
the  sun  in  photography  was  not  enough. 
Some  one  wished  the  figures  of  the  photo- 
graph to  move,  and  the  movies  had  to  come ; 
neither  was  that  enough.  Edison  thought 
they  might  as  well  talk,  so  he  made  them 
talk.  In  like  manner,  the  alchemist's  dream 
may  shatter  the  value  of  precious  stones,  as 
the  dream  of  the  poet  and  the  musician  have 
turned  the  tide  of  a  military  victory,  and  the 
rapt  vision  of  a  seer  transformed  the  spirit 
of  the  world.  In  other  words,  the  spirit  of 
man,  which  Solomon  called  the  candle  of  the 
Lord,  in  process  of  time  may  become  an 
electric  chandelier,  with  scores  of  other  im- 
provements beside  that  of  indirect  lighting. 
Like  electricity,  the  human  mind  seems 
capable  of  furnishing  power  for  any  enter- 
prise, from  the  construction  of  a  vast  sus- 
pension bridge,  or  tunnel,  and  the  manu- 
facture of  laboratory  jewels,  to  the  produc- 
tion of  a  spineless  cactus  or  a  seedless  orange. 
So  much,  indeed,  is  the  action  of  mind  like 

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that  of  electricity,  that  one  might  compare 
it  to  a  fine  invisible  wire,  which  connects  with 
an  inexhaustible  storage  battery  lying  be- 
yond the  range  of  human  vision. 

Although  one  may  not  know  how  many 
other  plants  the  mind  may  run  when,  in 
dreams  or  abstractions,  it  acts  like  an 
absentee  lord  from  the  estate  of  which  we 
are  tenants,  we  are  certain  that  one  of  its 
headquarters  is  the  human  brain.  Here  it 
carries  on  a  bewildering  variety  of  indus- 
tries, secreting  thoughts,  fancies,  and 
schemes,  and  storing  up  a  vast  collection  of 
memories,  each  furnished  with  an  electric 
switch  of  association.  Here  too  it  weaves 
our  hopes,  doubts,  fears,  faiths,  loves  and 
hates  and  sends  them  to  the  heart  to  be  dyed 
into  emotions  that  either  help  to  make  the 
world  go  round  or  make  it  stick  on  its  axis. 
What  an  incredible  form  of  intensive  culti- 
vation is  this  the  mind  carries  on  in  the  little 
area  covered  by  the  cranial  dome!  With 
plants  capable  of  fertilization  and  cross- 
fertilization  from  the  intellectual  pollen 
which  any  wind  of  chance  may  carry,  the 

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ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

mind  may  raise  a  million  crops  from  the 
same  brain  without  duplicating  one  raised 
from  another  brain. 

The  material  industry  which  resembles 
those  carried  on  in  the  brain  is  a  great  seed- 
raising  establishment.  Very  few  minds,  of 
course,  raise  all  the  different  kinds  of  seeds 
which  might  be  produced  on  their  cranial 
soil,  and  this  is  well,  since  in  every  brain 
there  is  some  one  kind  of  seed  which  will 
grow  better  than  any  other.  One  man  raises 
seeds  for  a  great  crop  of  railroads,  and  an- 
other, a  clergyman  or  teacher,  the  seeds  of 
ideals  to  be  sown  from  time  to  time  in  other 
minds  to  assist  the  making  of  full-grown 
men  and  women.  In  the  same  line  of  spirit- 
ual horticulture  is  all  good  literature,  and 
poetry  especially,  whose  seeds  are  winged 
and  hence  capable  of  very  wide  dissemina- 
tion. 

Observing  the  different  crops  grown  from 
different  brains,  the  query  rises  whether  the 
quality  of  the  brain  soil  may  materially  con- 
dition the  mind's  crops,  or  might  a  fine  mind 
raise  fine  crops  from  any  brain?  Or,  other- 

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THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

wise  stated,  could  a  fine  mind  make  a  fine 
brain  by  using  it,  as  the  master  violinist  im- 
parts to  the  fibers  of  his  instrument  some 
of  the  harmonic  quality  of  his  own  soul.  Or, 
can  there  be  such  a  difference  of  brain-cell 
and  -tissue  that  even  a  fine  mind  would  be 
baffled  of  its  end,  as  Beethoven  might  have 
been  had  he  tried  to  play  his  symphonies  on 
a  harmonica?  Could  a  mind  like  Shake- 
speare's have  used  the  brain  of  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  still  have  produced  the  works 
of  the  Bard  of  Avon,  or  was  the  mental 
organ  of  Shakespeare  as  exquisitely  adapted 
to  the  use  he  made  of  it  as  the  organs  of  a 
wood  thrush  are  to  the  spirit  of  song  which 
uses  them?  One  would  expect  a  brain  like 
Mark  Twain's  or  Dooley's  to  have  more 
crinkly  convolutions  from  which  mental  rip- 
ples could  come  than  one  would  find  in  the 
brain  of  a  man  in  whom  an  inordinate  seri- 
ousness furnishes  an  obstructing  wall  to  shut 
out  the  funshine  of  his  neighbor. 

Whether  its  individuality  lies  in  itself  or 
in  the  organ  which  it  uses,  or  in  both,  the 
mind,  with  all  its  impalpable  quality,  dis- 

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ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

plays  features  as  fixed  as  those  of  the  face 
and  infinitely  more  diverse.  To  describe 
them  all  one  would  need  to  use  most  of  the 
adjectives  of  all  languages  and  borrow  also 
their  figurative  meanings.  For  example,  one 
may  speak  of  open  and  shut  minds;  clear, 
foggy,  tidy,  cluttered,  stuffy,  well- ventilated, 
acute,  obtuse,  shallow,  faithless,  barren,  pro- 
lific, rich,  and  indigent  minds;  and  this  is 
only  a  beginning  of  an  endless  list  of  possible 
classifications. 

In  addition  to  all  the  native  qualities 
which  a  mind  may  have,  it  may  have  nearly 
as  many  which  are  induced.  A  Boston  mind 
(if  there  is  such  a  thing)  is  a  case  in  point. 
Of  the  varieties  mentioned,  the  open  mind  is 
probably  one  of  the  most  comfortable  and 
profitable  and  may  be  the  same  kind  labeled 
in  Holy  Writ  as  the  "willing  mind."  It 
has  a  very  large  anteroom,  where  it  is  willing 
to  meet  without  suspicion,  prejudice,  or 
painful  formality,  any  claimant  for  its  atten- 
tion, and  its  reward  is  often  the  entertain- 
ment of  angels  unawares. 

But  O  how  different  is  the  shut  mind! 

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THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

What  a  liveried  retinue  of  obstructions  one 
may  meet  at  the  very  threshold!  To  get  a 
new  idea  into  such  a  mind  may  be  as  pro- 
tracted a  feat  as  getting  a  dozen  trunks 
through  a  custom  house. 

Despite  all  this  mental  diversity,  which 
sometimes  seems  painfully  extended,  there 
is  for  each  mind,  no  matter  how  phlegmatic 
its  habit,  something  in  the  world  to  be 
ferreted  out,  and  the  game  is  the  more  in- 
teresting because  one  may  be  some  time  in 
doubt  what  one's  particular  quarry  is.  But 
one  may  start  with  the  conviction  that  it  is 
never  the  same  as  one's  neighbor's.  The 
Maker  of  the  game  attended  to  that.  For 
his  outline  of  an  individual  life-play  is  built 
on  lines  strangely  like  those  unconsciously 
adopted  by  human  story-tellers  and  play- 
wrights. There  must  be  an  obstacle  and  its 
overcoming,  a  knot  and  its  untying — or  there 
is  no  story,  no  play,  no  life. 

Hence  the  interest  cannot  begin  until  a 
man  discovers  what  the  particular  obstacle 
in  his  life-plot  is.  As  on  the  play-stage,  too, 
the  interest  of  the  plot  may  be  doubled  if  a 

173 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

character  has  several  obstacles  to  overcome 
— those  with  which  the  world  supplies  him, 
and  those  within  himself.  When  the  latter 
are  pretty  evenly  pitted  against  a  great  mind 
and  heart,  they  may  greatly  assist  per- 
sonality, endowing  it  with  a  dramatic  sus- 
pense and  climax,  lacking  in  the  man  whose 
temperamental  giants  were  mostly  slain  by 
his  ancestors. 

Unless  the  human  mind  is  at  work  on  one 
or  both  of  these  obstacles,  it  cannot  be  said 
to  be  "in  the  game" — or  playing  the  role  for 
which  it  was  cast.  It  is  either  out  of  the 
play  entirely,  a  super,  or  an  unidentified 
member  of  the  mob,  its  occupation  gone 
when  its  temporary  connection  with  some 
company  is  at  an  end.  In  the  vernacular  of 
the  world-stage,  the  man  or  woman  not  in 
the  cast  is  known  as  an  idler  or  drifter,  and 
as  such  may  become  a  serious  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  those  actively  playing  their  life-roles. 
The  latter  condition  involves  waste  and,  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  disables  the  Cosmic 
Company,  for  whom  its  Manager  provides 
just  about  men  and  women  enough  to  run 

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THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

the  manifold  enterprises  of  a  growing  world. 
To  this  end  is  apportioned  for  every  calling, 
from  the  rag-picker's  to  the  poet's,  a  certain 
quantity  and  quality  of  mind-stock. 

But  a  single  metaphor  can  convey  no  idea 
of  the  unlimited  field  of  action  which  is  open 
to  mind.  Like  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  which 
Christ  compared  to  a  sower,  to  a  mustard- 
seed,  to  leaven,  to  a  treasure  hid  in  a  field, 
to  a  merchantman,  and  to  a  net  which  was 
cast  into  the  sea,  the  human  mind  requires 
an  indefinite  number  of  figures  to  mirror  its 
vast  energies  and  capacities.  This  is  espe- 
cially apparent  when  one  studies  its  more 
complex  action  in  partnership  with  the 
heart,  such  as  is  involved  in  all  emotional 
experience. 

One  may  possibly  observe  the  processes 
of  pure  mind  in  the  solution  of  mathematical 
problems,  and  in  the  sometimes  barren  ab- 
stractions of  philosophy,  chilled  to  a  tem- 
perature of  thirty-one  degrees  Fahrenheit. 
But  in  all  the  pulsing  experiences  of  life, 
by  which  man  is  unfolded,  from  his  most 
intimate  relations  to  those  as  wide  as  the 

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ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

human  race,  there  is  always  a  joint  action 
of  the  heart  and  head,  or  a  vote  from  both 
houses  in  the  Republic  of  Man.  Unless  this 
form  of  individual  legislation  exists,  a  man 
is  living  Tinder  an  unconstitutional  mon- 
archy, tyrannously  ruled  by  his  red  or  white 
corpuscles,  however  free  he  may  think  him- 
self. 

Unfortunately,  the  head  and  heart  are 
often  mentioned  as  if  they  were  entirely  in- 
dependent organs  in  separate  compartments. 
But  nature  makes  no  such  sharp  demarca- 
tions in  their  functions.  She  never  does  for 
any  organ,  but  makes  it  collaborate,  visibly 
or  invisibly,  with  all  the  rest,  suffusing  and 
blending  its  functions  and  their  influence, 
as  she  does  those  of  the  heart,  by  means  of 
the  arteries,  veins,  capillaries,  and  the  organs 
of  respiration. 

In  like  manner  there  are  thoughts  of  aortic 
force,  and  others  which  are  arterial,  venous, 
and  capillary,  in  their  function  and  influence. 
If  one  could  watch  a  thought  from  its  be- 
ginning to  its  end — if  it  ever  has  one — it 
would  be  discovered  that  something  quite  as 

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THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

wonderful  as  the  route  and  changes  of  the 
blood  in  its  course  happens  to  every  thought 
which  gets  into  the  mental  circulation.  A 
certain  percentage  of  one's  thoughts  ap- 
parently go  to  the  heart  to  get  warmth  and 
color.  When  a  thought  or  group  of  thoughts 
takes  the  deepest,  finest  shade  the  heart  can 
give,  the  phenomenon  is  known  as  love ;  and 
if  the  colors  are  fast,  the  effect  is  called  con- 
stancy. A  lighter  shade  of  the  same  emo- 
tion is  friendship.  When  the  color  of  either 
of  these  emotions  does  not  wear  well,  it  may 
be  due  to  the  fact  that  one's  first  undyed 
thoughts  were  woven  of  illusion;  or,  if  woven 
of  realities,  that  they  were  sent  to  the  wrong 
dyeing  plant,  perhaps  to  the  gall,  liver,  or 
spleen,  instead  of  the  heart. 

So  the  risks  that  attend  the  mental  cir- 
culation are  as  great  as  those  of  the  physical, 
and  each  set  of  risks  reacts  upon  the  other. 
A  thought,  moreover,  is  such  a  rapid  absorb- 
er of  color  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
keep  one  in  the  mental  circulation  for  any 
length  of  time  without  having  it  take  on 
some  tint,  good  or  bad.  We  hear  of  black 

177 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

thoughts,  but  it  is  probable  that  thoughts 
may  have  a  great  many  other  hues,  including 
green,  yellow,  pale-blue,  dark-blue,  rose,  and 
deep  crimson.  Probably  the  blackest  kind 
of  thoughts  were  only  pearl  gray  when  they 
first  left  the  mental  looms,  and  everyone 
knows  that  the  palest  damask  rose  of  fancy 
may  be  dyed  into  the  deepest  scarlet  of  feel- 
ing. All  kinds  of  prejudices  are  familiar 
examples  of  thought  which  have  absorbed  too 
much  color,  or  the  wrong  shade. 

Nor  is  the  circulation  of  a  thought  con- 
fined to  the  individual  system  belonging  to 
the  brain  in  which  it  seemed  to  originate. 
By  means  of  speech,  the  printed  or  written 
page,  a  few  inspired  strokes  of  an  artist's 
brush,  a  sculptor's  chisel,  or  the  tiny  dots 
used  by  a  musician,  a  thought  or  a  feeling 
may  get  into  the  circulation  of  the  whole 
world.  Thus  through  eye  and  ear,  and 
their  finer  inward  extensions,  we  are  knit 
into  the  mental  and  emotional  circulation 
of  the  entire  human  race,  becoming  mem- 
bers one  of  another  in  a  sense  as  literal  as  it 
is  figurative. 

178 


THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

With  all  its  lubricity,  then,  mind  is  at  once 
the  most  ductile,  as  well  as  the  strongest 
force  known  to  man.  Even  had  it  done  noth- 
ing else,  how  stupendous  are  its  achieve- 
ments through  thousands  of  languages,  made 
marvelously  effective  by  its  joint  action  with 
the  emotional  troops  drafted  into  its  service. 
Let  one  draw  aside  for  a  moment  the  heavy 
veil  of  familiarity  which  hides  most  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world,  including  those 
wrought  by  man,  and  consider  how  like  a 
tale  of  enchantment  is  the  history  of  alpha- 
bets and  what  man  has  done  with  them. 
What  other  finite  force  in  the  universe,  save 
mind,  and  its  dynamic  partner,  the  heart, 
could  breathe  the  breath  of  life  into  a  small 
collection  of  immaterial  symbols  and  knit 
them  together  into  syllables,  words,  and  sen- 
tences that  pulse  with  tenderness,  throb  with 
passion,  or  glow  white  with  the  highest 
aspirations  of  the  spirit? 

Whatever  the  mind  may  grasp  from  the 
boundless  realms  which  are  its  empire,  what- 
ever the  emotions  of  the  heart,  love  or  pity, 
hate  or  scorn,  hope  or  fear,  language  has 

179 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

some  word,  or  group  of  words,  as  delicately 
adapted  to  their  expression  as  are  the  pinions 
of  a  bird  to  its  weight  and  the  apex  of  its 
flight.  Even  for  the  finest  fringes  of  fancy, 
thought,  and  feeling,  the  half  inarticulate 
murmurs  of  the  spirit,  man  can  conjure  from 
syllables  and  words  an  ethereal  embodiment 
matching  his  mental  content  as  its  fragrant 
petals  match  the  soul  of  a  rose.  With  its 
ever  recurring  additions  from  every  age  and 
race,  and  the  individual  impress  of  single 
great  spirits  upon  it,  language  is  the  com- 
posite psychological  photograph  of  the  hu- 
man race.  Or,  to  change  the  figure,  it  is  a 
psychological  scale  for  mental  and  emotional 
weights  and  measures,  more  delicately  ad- 
justable than  any  used  by  chemist  or  apothe- 
cary. 

By  means  of  a  vowel,  consonant,  or  syl- 
lable, more  or  less,  an  adjective,  adverb,  or 
exclamation,  man  weighs  his  thoughts  and 
feelings  as  he  has  learned  to  weigh  the 
heavenly  bodies.  When  no  word  or  sentence 
in  its  literal  sense  meets  his  need,  he  calls 
upon  his  Ariel-like  faculty,  the  imagination, 

180 


THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

to  help  him  with  figures  of  speech,  and  for 
these  the  world  and  his  own  experience  offer 
an  inexhaustible  source.  So  it  is  possible 
for  men  of  the  widest  mental  and  moral 
divergence  to  use  the  same  language  and  yet 
show  as  vast  a  difference  in  their  verbal 
efflorescence  as  a  sunflower  and  a  lily  of  the 
valley,  which  draw  from  the  same  soil  and 
air  the  raw  material  with  which  each  petals 
forth  its  individuality. 

Yet  all  this  is  only  a  fraction  of  the  far- 
reaching  results  attained  by  means  of  lan- 
guage and  printing-presses,  which  are  per- 
haps the  most  valuable  of  all  of  man's  inven- 
tions. By  their  agencies,  man  has  abolished 
the  thick  partitions  of  the  centuries  between 
the  past  and  the  present  and  looked  into  the 
very  hearts  of  his  brothers  who  lived  thou- 
sands of  years  ago.  Through  the  printed 
page,  more  wonderful  than  any  enchanted 
mirror  of  fairyland,  we  see  the  never-ending 
pageant  of  the  world  pass,  Jew  and  Gentile, 
bond  and  free,  heroes,  villains,  warriors, 
martyrs,  saints,  seers,  and  prophets,  each, 
through  the  printed  page,  bequeathing  an  in- 

181 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

spiration  or  a  warning,  as  our  own  age, 
through  the  same  agencies,  will  leave  its 
legacies  to  the  future. 

Not  only  does  language  save  for  us  the 
record  of  the  material  progress  of  every 
nation,  but  all  its  finer  garnerings  of  thought 
and  feeling,  preserving  in  the  exquisite  vials 
of  poesy  the  spiritual  vintage  of  the  rarest 
souls  of  each  generation. 

Thus  are  we  made  free  stockholders  in  the 
richest  of  all  corporations,  the  Cosmic  Men- 
tal Harvesting  Company,  Unlimited,  from 
which  we  receive  daily,  almost  hourly,  divi- 
dends, though  we  know  it  not.  To  this  great 
company  every  one  makes  some  contribution 
also  from  his  mind,  heart,  and  personality, 
either  strengthening  or  watering  the  cosmic 
stock.  Perhaps  a  more  evolved  generation 
than  ours  may  see  these  mental  and  emo- 
tional currents,  which,  like  streams,  course 
from  every  individuality  in  their  strangely 
varied  and  winding  channels,  starting  at  an 
act  performed,  an  idea  spoken,  written, 
painted,  or  sung,  or  borne  on  the  finer  waves 
of  secondary  ether.  If  all  these  streams  of 

182 


THE  GREAT  MANUSCRIPT 

influence  from  the  dead  and  the  living  could 
be  seen,  they  might  be  found  to  bear  a  strik- 
ing resemblance  to  the  great  water  systems 
of  the  world,  with  their  myriad  rills,  brooks, 
rivers,  lakes,  and  oceans.  Some  of  us  con- 
tribute little  rills  of  influence  and  others  are 
Amazons  of  power  and  inspiration.  Many 
are  placid  dreaming  lakes,  and  a  few  fur- 
nish the  world  with  its  great  mental  oceans, 
as  Shakespeare  did;  and  still  others,  like 
Phillips  Brooks,  temper  the  psychical  zone 
in  which  they  live  by  a  warm  Gulf  Stream 
from  their  own  great  hearts. 

Strangely  like  the  history  of  physical 
streams,  too,  is  that  of  psychical  currents 
which  may  become  obstructed  or  stagnant, 
or  may  receive  tributaries  that  pollute  or 
purify  them.  Nor  less  than  the  physical 
river,  whose  waters  are  ever  changing  within 
its  banks,  does  the  river  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  action  change  from  day  to  day,  often- 
times, like  its  counterpart,  washing  itself 
clear,  in  the  long  and  widening  channel  of 
the  years. 

Thus  does  the  history  of  the  individual 

183 


ON  THE  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  GOD 

duplicate  the  vaster  history  of  the  human 
race,  working  out  the  great  plan,  which 

"Drew  as  a  bubble  from  old  infamies 
And  fen-pools  of  the  past 
The  shy  and  many-colored  soul  of  man," 

as  Mr.  George  Stirling  so  exquisitely  puts 
it. 

Studying  the  ever-broadening  empire  of 
thought,  from  its  beginning  in  the  "fen- 
pools  of  the  past,"  and  remembering  that  no 
one  has  yet  discovered  a  limit  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  mind's  achievements,  it  seems 
quite  conceivable  that  some  day  it  will  con- 
quer interplanetary  space  as  it  has  already 
put  a  girdle  around  our  own  globe.  That 
done,  we  may  look  for  thoughts  expanded 
from  the  provinciality  of  a  single  world  to 
interplanetary  breadth  and  scope.  From 
this  possibility,  become  an  actuality,  others 
will  as  surely  follow,  until  man's  thoughts, 
enlarged  from  their  present  childish  com- 
prehension of  divine  thought,  shall  meet  and 
merge  with  those  of  God. 


184 


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